PayPal is danderous
 

I am not the brightest bulb in the chandelier
and gave personal info to them as requested in their email. Turns out the email wasnt from them afterall. It had the paypal logo and looked right. They just told me that their is nothing they can do about it. I will have to close down my account and open a new one now.
Just thought I would save someone else this problem...

It's called phishing. Don't EVER EVER give any financial information requested by e-mail.

I'm sorry that happened. Please don't beat yourself up too badly - you are only human after all. They say you learn something new every day, and, oh boy, you got a doozy.

I get those fake emails often, I never open up something that comes, supposedly, from PayPal. Next time delete it and then open your paypal account and see if they have a note for you. Also you can send the fake note to paypal for them to see.
Sorry this happened to you, I am the suspicious type so I deleted it.

JandaO, sorry for the hassle! I've received those "verify" e-mails from just about everyone under the sun, including what the e-mail said, was my bank and I delete all of them!!! I've been told and have heard for some time now not to answer those type of e-mails, regardless of how official they look! If someone wants to verify info, they will have to do so in writing!

I got one of those emails, and I didn't "fall for it" but I did forward it to Pay Pal as they say to do. They shut down my account and 7 weeks later, I still can't get into it!!!

JandaO, one other thing...if you DID by change give out any type of financial info I'd suggest you put a fraud alert on your bank account and notify any credit card companies. Also, you may want to take a look at your credit report over the next few months just to make sure nothing mysterious is going on without your knowing about it. Not to be an alarmist, but an ounce of prevention......

PayPal is dangerous for other reasons: if they screw up, you have no recourse. They took $475 from me and gave it to someone who had been defrauded by <i>someone else</i>, and I have no way of recovering it.

I no longer use PayPal.

I have read warnings that emails are being sent out that look like messages from the IRS, but are not of course.

JandaO, thanks for posting your experience as that will remind others to never respond to an email asking for personal information no matter how &quot;authentic&quot; it seems.

csroe, has some good advice that I would follow if I were you. Best wishes.

This is a problem and the reason why I never use Paypal, however if you are in any doubt about a suspicious mail send it to Paypal at [email protected]

They will identify it as false or real within just a few hours.

However the general rule is DO NOT EVER send your information in response to any mail from ANYONE.

Muck

FYI, some amazon.com lookalike phishes have been going out lately. I got one of those.

It's not just PayPal, I get phoney emails proporting to be from various banks, credit card companies, etc.

Actually PayPal is one of the easiet to verify as all mail from paypal is addressed with your name, NOT payPal customer. Any mail from paypal that doesn't open with Dear Jody d&gt;&gt;&gt; is a fake and should be sent totheir abuse department.

I have transfered all my funds to an account I didnt give them info on. Tomorrow I am going to the bank and close this account.
I will call Mastercard with the fraud alert.
Thanks for your support. I will NEVER do this again...
God I need a vacation !!!

It's really very simple - don't tell anybody anything. (If someone called you on the phone and asked for personal info would you give it? Of course not! Why is the computer any different?)

When you get a phishing email representing any company just send it to them with a note. Then immediately go to the real web site and change your secret code (which you should do every 6 months anyway if the site involves money in any way).

And - if you have given financial info to ANYONE - immediately call all your banks and credit cards and tell them - so they can remove any bogus charges and assign you new account numbers/send new cards. (There's no reason they can't do this in a day or two. If they don;t cooperate change companies.)

Robespierre - have you taken them to small claims court? You'll win since they won;t bother to show up.

Janda, sorry it happened to you, and thank you for warning!

Often I see e-mails &quot;from&quot; banks I don't have an account with, websites like Amazon even if I don't have an account with them, all kind of scams.

Unless it's a monthly statement, nobody sends e-mails, they call you during work hours. If in doubt, don't reply to an e-mail, pick up the phone!

The same with phone calls. Ask why they call, hang up, and call not the number they gave you, but the 800 number on your card.

jody, if it <i>doesn't</i> have your name on it, it definitely <u>isn't</u> from PayPal.

But if it <i>does</i> have your name on, that doesn't prove that it <u>is</u>.

The rules are simple: <b>don't respond to emails by giving personal information</b>. Period. Log in through the company's &quot;front door&quot; site with the URL that starts with https://

And while we're on the subject: <b>don't open an email attachment unless you're expecting it</b> - even if the return address is someone you know. Period.

Turn off &quot;automatically download images&quot; in your email client (spammers use them to confirm your address is good).

A good website to refer to often to see what scams are going on on the internet is www.symantec.com

Just check in once a week to stay current on the myriad ways you might be conned...

Hi NYTraveler, the way I read your post it appears as though you are suggesting to send a note to whomever sent the phishing email but I am sure you meant to forward the phishing email on to the company the phishing email is pretending to represent. Just posting in case someone else misunderstood as one should never respond to a phishing email as it then verifies your email address is indeed valid.

JandaO, don't mentally beat yourself up. I was real smart, NOT, about a year ago when I stupidly laid my creditcard down on the counter at the supermarket so I could sign the creditcard receipt. In two seconds my creditcard was gone. I am almost 100% sure the guilty party was the cashier and not the customer behind me. I insisted the Mgr be called over. The cashier was acting very strange. I never saw her at the store again, assume she was fired. And of course I had to call my CC Co etc., close the account, get a new one. No matter how diligent we are most of us err once in awhile.

I just got another one today, I always forward them to either [email protected] or [email protected], and they will reply to you that is was indeed fake...

I have recieved these &quot;phishing&quot; e-mails from Paypal, and I don't have an account there. Also from various banks at which I do not have accounts. They look authentic---logo and everything, but the clue is the &quot;link&quot; on which they ask you to click to verify your account information. Don't ever respond to these! You can go to your financial institution's real website and see if they want you to report these frauds. Most of them have given up trying to combat the phishing; there are just too many of them. So be vigilant, and never click on a link in an e-mail that asks you to verify information.

Hardly seems fair to claim that &quot;PayPal is dangerous&quot; when the email you replied to actually came from someone else . . this kind of phishing is common and completely unrelated to PayPal

Rich

Rich ([email protected]),
It looked like the same emails paypal had sent me. It had their logo. I had NO idea it was from someone other than paypal.

This is indeed called &quot;phishing&quot;, and it is not coming directly from PayPal. E-mails like this are from people trying to gain access to your personal information. I have received e-mails like this APPEARING to be from eBay, Citibank, Amazon, PayPal and others. If you receive e-mails asking for account numbers, passwords etc., do not answer them. If you do business with the company and think that the e-mail is &quot;real&quot; call them directly to verify or log in through the company's &quot;front door&quot; site as robespierre suggested. It is PayPal's policy as well as eBay's to never ask for your account info via e-mail.

Thanks for sharing your story here, you may have prevented others from making the same mistake!

<b>PayPal is dangerous.</b>

Your agreement with them allows them to dip into your bank account any time they want to, whether their justification for doing so has any validity or not.

If that isn't &quot;dangerous,&quot; I don't know what you'd call it.

I received a similar email with the eBay logo.

I forwarded it to them and they responded that it wasn't from thrm.

When eBay sends an email to a member, they also place a duplicate in that members account mail box.

So, if you receive an eMail that appears to be from eBay, before responding go to your eBay account and check your messages.

LoveItaly is correct, never &quot;opt&quot; out of these phony address sites as you DO end up verifying your e-mail address and will end up on other e-mail address lists. Just delete them and ignore them!

My PayPal account only allows a charge to my credit card . . which can very easily be disputed.

Janda . . my only point is that is does not seem fair to blame PayPal for a sucker punch from someones else . . based on my email today, I could claim that CitiBank, Bank Of America and Chase are dangerous

I sell things on eBay. You have to have a bank account to do that through PayPal.

Now I only accept credit cards for payment. I figure PayPal's siezure of my $475 has cost them five or six times that in the interim.

I C

I have gotten several of these recently from PayPal and also quite a few recently from Chase bank. Very scary!

I have an Earthlink account and I get these bogus emails all the time wanting all my personal information otherwise my account will be closed. They even include the logo. You just don't know who to trust these days.

Robespierre -

You do need a bank account to sell. But you can still have the option to buy with your cc - and get their protection.

If it was a sale that was disputed and PayPal decided the buyer was correct and took back the money from your bank account - you can still take them to small claims court. (I know they say you can;t - but that's like garages that say they're not responsible for your car when you leave it - they are just by virtue of accepting it for pay - no matter what they say on the ticket stub.)

nytraveler and Robespierre--

I'm getting the impression that they took money from Robespierre for a sale not related to Robespierre's account? A totally non-related transaction?

If that's the case, that's REALLY scary. I'm considering paying a security deposit for a summer sublease through paypal, and now I'm really hesitating--perhaps I should totally untie my bank account from paypal.

However, my biggest concern is the OP reporting that Paypal is danderous.

The last thing I need is dandruff.

I think &quot;danderous&quot; was just a way of saying the PayPal people are flakey.

Thanks for the clarification Neopolitan. :-)

I was seriously concerned for my scalp health. WHEW.

(But I am truly interested to learn more about what happened to Robespierre and how much at risk we are for that sort of mistake being inflicted upon us)

I sold a computer to a lady, and she sold it to someone else under false pretenses (not as advertised). She paid me $475 for it. When the buyer complained, they took the $475 out of my account. So I was out either the computer or the money, depending on how you look at it.

I just received an Email from Paypal, and have received several from Ebay. I don't have an account at either. I wanted to alert Ebay to this, but there is no way of contacting them without registering first, which I do not want to do.

Ooby, I was wondering how long it would take someone to bring up the danderousness of the thread :)

As for Paypal, I use it several times a month, for years now, and have NEVER had a problem with them. I have twice had problems with ebay sellers, and both times were able to work things out, with the help of both ebay and paypal.

GreenDragon, I had used eBay and PayPal several times a month for years without any problem.

Then they took my $475. See what I mean?