Paypal account hijacked.
@Angelwhispers (8978)
United States
February 13, 2007 8:43am CST
I have heard it said that if you are online long enough you will be taken in by a scam or Identity thief. Well it finally happened to me this week. I have a few groups of PTR and surveys that i belong to, one of them has been behind in payments since the earthquake that took out optic cables in china. Last week I got an email needing my paypal account address to send payment, the email came from the groups website and no big deal they have my paypal account address anyway as needed to send payments, when I hit submit on the address it went to what looked like paypal.....so of course stupid me types in my password, just to find that its not paypal but a blank page...
Later that evening I started getting emails from paypal saying my password had been changed that the payment transaction was complete, that my security questions had been changed, and that now they have restricted my account.
I had less than 100.00 in my account thank goodness, as I had just had a transfer to my bank account. The criminals tried to wipe out my entire account. I must say though that Paypal was excellent in recovering all of my money and spent 2 hours on the phone reseting my entire account. Their security system is fantastic. They suspected third party involvment from the beginning and they did it quickly.
I felt very stupid and foolish and have learned a great lesson in all of this.
Anyone else have "lessons" they want to share?
7 people like this
9 responses
@XxAngelxX (2830)
• Canada
13 Feb 07
WOW! I'm sorry to hear this has happened to you but thank goodness paypal is such a wonderful site. I have never had this happen to me, however recently there was a theft at a store that one of my friends works with. Someone stole all the credit card numbers of the shoppers (my friend has used her card to shop at the store as well). For three days, twice a day, her credit card was charged $22. and her paypal account was also emptied out. Paypal was great in returning the money! It's wonderful to know there are still some great companies out there such as paypal and I feel very confident dealing with them.
3 people like this
@Angelwhispers (8978)
• United States
13 Feb 07
Here locally it was TJ MAX that was targeted. Someone broke into thier computer system at christmas time and took customers information. I hate that these big chain stores need to keep personal information about you such as your address, phone number and credit card usage online. Who isn't shopping at christmas with plastic?
I agree about paypal, I was very impressed!
1 person likes this
@weemam (13372)
•
15 Feb 07
My son did the same thing the other evening , he was on the net and an email from ( what he thought was our server) asked hi for his password ) he gave it and the next day we were cut off the net , I was on the phone for ages paying so much per min , I was told after about 1 hour someone had hacked into our account and sent out emails "it could have been a lot worse" I was so surprised at this as my son is usually so carefull , he is now lol and we have all new passwords,xx
@LittleMel (8742)
• Canada
23 Mar 07
No I never experience that since I only used Paypal for spending on ebay and receiving payment from online moneymaking sites. But I never doubt that they really are great teams at Paypal. You make the right choice by having account there. Thank God
1 person likes this
@Angelwhispers (8978)
• United States
24 Mar 07
Hi Mel. I totally agree with you,,, although this was quite a learning experience. I am pleased with Paypal
1 person likes this
@bkfuels (1601)
• Canada
13 Feb 07
This has happened to me twice. They have never gotton anything because I went straight to paypal by phone they are really helpful. They said they would never ask for that informayion in an email, also told me what to look for in a fraudulant email. Do not ever respond go straight to them. These people that scam are really good it looked just like a paypal email to me. It also happened on a weekend so I had to wait till monday to call them. To bad you had to learn the hard way, but you are right their security system is fantastic .
@palpalsky (899)
• United States
14 Mar 07
thanks for sharing your story ...though i have not encountred such thing ..but such incidents are really eye opener
1 person likes this
@champr23 (687)
• United States
20 Mar 07
Though, I wonder how much money you orginally had in the account? My advice is not to keep substanial funds in a paypal account.
I had only one experience with Paypal. I sold two items over eBay. A flower arrangement my mom made, and an autographed sports picture. Welp, the funds got put into my Paypal account. When I tried to pay for something with my M&T checkcard with the money I thought I got from eBay I got charged 18 dollars from the bank for overdrawing my account. lol. What happened was I thought that the Paypal account directly put money into the only account I provided them--my check card, but it turns out you have to actually send the money from Paypal to the check card. :(. But s'ok cause I just charmed the lady at the bank and she cleared the fee for me. :). My lesson was not to mess around when you have limited funds in your account, and always double check whats in their in your uncertain.
Other than that I'm going to go crazy at this point in time because my sister is singing a song and its quite annoying.
1 person likes this
@Angelwhispers (8978)
• United States
24 Mar 07
Calm yourself Champr:)) Sisters are suppose to be annoying. No it was not a substantial amount, as I had just made a purchase, but what was in there was still mine! I am very pleased as I said with Pay pal they were fast and fantastic. They knew before I did, and that makes me feel safer with them then I did before the incident.
1 person likes this
@Lshauna1 (216)
• United States
15 Mar 07
You is lucky. Paypal is good at what they is suppose to do protect OUR FUNDS. I am going to give you some helpful advice.
1. Don't deal with that site again be very careful at dealing with out of country businesses all in not legit.
2. When yoyu get emails from what suppose to be a company you deal with towards money and passwords always first read, check spelling for errors.
3. L@@K in the right corner of the web page and see if you see a secured lock(yellow) If you don't it is a FAKE page. (CLOSE OUT FAST)! If you got a cellphone call
paypal 1-888-221-1161 immediately or send the email to spoof@paypal.com
I hope that I was helpful.
@66jerseygirl (3877)
• United States
21 Feb 07
I came close to being scammed by that paypal email. I had read this email saying my paypal account had been compromised and that I had to send my account info.Before I had a chance to respond,something came up and I had to shut down my computer.When I went back online a day later,there was an email from my sister listing some of the email scams floating around and one of them happened to be about paypal so needless to say I didn't answer that email.If it wasn't for my sister's email,I probably wouldn't have anything left in my account! The lesson i learned is never give info out without confirming first.
