Paypal

I get these fake emails regarding my account from paypal. I have spoken to their representatives each time and reported those spam's is what they are called. Do not give out any personal information when you receive an email that says it's from paypal or ebay until you are 100% sure it's legit.

ladybug

Paypal is a prime target for scams and they are not very secure. I am very good with computers and recognizing scams and I still got hit with two attempted $500 withdraws against my checking account via paypal. I never could figure out how they hacked my account though. I know that I did not respond to any bogus emails. My best guess is one of my computers might have been compromised with a key logger or virus but I never found one. Luckily I caught the transaction the day it happened so I easily stopped it. Paypal has some nice benefits but being attached to a bank account makes it risky. I have been avoiding ebay and paypal lately anyway. They drastically overcharge for the service they provide. I would recommend craigslist for free auctions separated by local.

The key with Paypal - watch your address bar! As with any link you click on, be smart. Think - why in the hell would Paypal, this financial institution, that credit card or anybody email you to verify who you are?? And then, why would the web page ask for such personal information like your entire social security and the entire credit card number? They have that info on file!!!

The safest way to protect your identity is to pay attention to what you are doing. Don't click every link sent to you. Pay attention to the websites you visit. If the link opens a new page with no address bar, use your head? Why would a valid, multi billion dollar company hide stuff? They would only hide if they WEREN'T who they claimed. For example, the correct website for Citibank is citibank.com, not citibank.openall.net/junction/index/html or some silly sounding URL. The word JUST IN FRONT of the .com, .net, .org or .whatever is the domain you are accessing. Having the name of the company anywhere else but just before the extension and you are not visiting the actual website. Phishers usually will link to the actual site their are spoofing, stealing images and links. Look at the address bar - that's the key.

I can't stress enough - don't use IE6 or IE7. They are just not safe. getfirefox.com. Firefox has an AWESOME anti-fishing feature that will warm you if the site has been flagged as fake. And if you see that the site if fake, with a couple clicks you can protect others by telling people.

And if you get a fake email, save the cheerleader/save the world - email the company. Just about all have an email account "abuse@......" Send it to them. They will love you for it. So will I.

And considering this:
wcco.com/local/craigslist.murder.burnsville.2.415173.html
...I'll pass on Craigslist.

yes, be VERY vigilant and watch your address bar, these days scammers are getting bolder and smarter as well so we should never give information to any sites unless we are sure that it's safe. If you've given personal information to a site once, then there should be no reason as to why they should ask you again for them, right?

All common sense issues mentioned above could have saved me much misery
I am almost certain my mistake was clicking a paypal link from an EBAY auction I won
I did have to re enter some info, which should have given the scam away

I am so sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with paypal. :( I have been using paypal for almost 8yrs now without any major problems and any conflicts that I had were resolved within 24hrs.
Something else to remember about paypal, when you log onto something and give your email addy, people can try and use your email addy to collect a payment from paypal. I use the example of people/places that have you use your email for sign on.
I had one charge come up on my paypal that I had not authorized. Paypal let it go through, then had me file a dispute form. The money was back in 24hrs, and paypal took action against the person who tried to debit my accout as well as providing me with informaton to take my own action against the party who did this.
But the thing I like about paypal is that no one ever actually sees any bank information or cc information to continue from there.
Just my story about paypal. I guess it has it's pros and cons just as does anyother site or cc.
:)

All this makes me very uncomfortable. I have a paypal acct and I also have an Ebay toolbar. It warned me once I was on a site that was not Ebay.So I know it works.I have my bank account linked to Paypal and now it scares me although I never keep any big amounts in there we only deposit money in there and then turn around and pay bills with it. I had one change on my payapl account that was not suposed to be there. I took a trail aubscription to something and it was supposed to be for a number of days but in 2 days they had debitted my paypal account for 39.95.It was a survey club.I could not find anyway to stop the debit so it went through. I emailed the place back and forth and also contacted Paypal and used their form to get the money back.In the end the company paid the money back as they had a money back garantee. It was also a sham site .I was already a member once to many of the survey sites. Anyway I am really scared now about linking my account to paypal. I do also use IE6. Think I should switch to Firefox. I have it already on my pc .I just never use it I always use IE6 that what I have always used.

I lost my identity from Paypal about 2 months ago. I have been Paypal member since mid 90's. Back then ID theft was no concern and Paypal had my SS# on file. I had all kinds of charges from Paypal to my checking and paypal registered credit cards. Lately the crook opened Paypal credit card account and charged. I reported local police and was advised to put on Fraud alert for 7 years with 3 credit reporting agencies. All of damages recovered without cost. I pay close attention to my Paypal accounts now.

This happened to me a few years ago. I 'received' an e-mail..saying it was Paypal, anyway. The e-mail stated I "needed to update my account." Well.....I clicked on the link and "updated". The next day I saw SOOO many 'big' purchses on my Paypal account. And my bank account was 'attached' to my Paypal, as well. To make a long story short, ALL of the 'amounts' were credited back to my account. OMG!! What a nightmare!

I had a merchant charge my paypal account after an order was cancelled. Did not find out until I got declined at the checkout line. Paypal was impossible to deal with. They sided with the merchant right off the bat and told us we had to prove that we cancelled the order. I never leave more than 50 dollars in paypal anymore.

i think Paypal is pretty good, however, because of the incident I had (above post) I don't 'attach' my bank account to it anymore.

The key thing with e-mails that claim to be from Paypal is to watch the spelling. Most of them will spell words incorrectly, or use bad grammar (because they come from scammers operating out of other countries, without a good understanding of our language!).

To be honest, I have had a Paypal account for years, and have received very few e-mails directly from Paypal - so when I start receiving e-mail after e-mail from "Paypal", I forward them to [email]spoof@paypal.com[/email]. That's Paypal's security department, and they investigate every single e-mail they receive. They will respond to you and advise if the e-mail was from them or not. Every single e-mail I have forwarded to them has come back as a phishing e-mail or a scam.

Just keep in mind, Paypal will never, ever ask for your username, password or bank information in an e-mail - they have all that information already - so why would they ask for it? Also, they will never ask you to click on a link in an e-mail to "confirm your identity", "update your account information", or anything else. They will tell you to go to the site - not click on a link in an e-mail.

Thanks for the reply, SUEBEE. The 'phishing thing' seems more and more 'popular' now a days. I also had one, concerning my bank account..."update your information." However.......I just KNEW it wasn't from my bank.

I used to get as many phishing emails as overseas lottery emails before they installed better filters at work. 5th Third bank and BOA were the most common!

Thats why if you are going to deal with eBay and paypal you should have the eBay toolbar to warn you if you are not on an eBay site. I had my paypal debit card denied today at walmart .Come to find out I had a 15 dollar negative balance on my paypal account. How canb that be when My bank aact is connected to paypal acct and have money in the bank.It was like If I don't put 15 dollars into paypal it will deny the other 2 charges that i had pending.So I had put 15 dollars from checking acct hooked to paypal acct into paypal.They said as soon as it posted I could use the 15 dollars.Why does that sound dumb?I didn't want to use the 15 its just that they said I owed it to paypal for something i had no idea of.

Patricia -

your Paypal account is simply that - a Paypal account. It may be 'connected' to your bank account, but that is only for funding purposes - you have to initiate the transfer of funds from your bank to your Paypal account yourself - manually - through the Paypal site. It won't automatically draw money from your bank account. Only a debit card from your bank will draw money from your bank account when you use it at a store. In order to use your Paypal debit card at a store, you must have money in the Paypal account itself.

Sorry, butbthats the way it used to be not now. Now even though you have 0 in your paypal acct and have a bank acct connected you can still use your paypal debit card and it will use your abck up funding (bank acct).It uses any money in your paypal acct first then if not enough it takes it from your bank acct assuming you have it connect or what ever you have connected to your card. I know because I been doing this for a long time ever since I first read that we could now do this. It was not always this way though.Used to you ould only use what was in your paypal acct or had to transfer money into the paypal .It just changed last year.

I see that on the site now, sorry. :oops:

i personally have had to different paypal accounts and i had problems with both of them the first on i had almost 1500 dollars in the account and one day i logged on because i was going to add some more money only to discover my account was frozen. so i called paypal and they accuse me of suspicious activity. so they have frozen my account for six months while they make a decision on my account and the worst part is they would tell me what i had done. well they told me as long as i dont owe anyone money or anyone puts in a claim i should at least get my money back when the six months were up i logged on the account i discovered i was almost 3000 dollars negative and i was floored by that so i started looking at all the activity i discovered there was almost 25 claims on my money and i didn't know who any of these people were and paypal paid them all i filed to dispute all of them but they then told me that there is nothing they can or will do and i have to bring the account back up to a zero balance before i can close it now how and why would an institution dealing with others people money with no loyalty or concern or care that they allow this to happen come to find out they dont verify anything so if anyone finds out someones account is frozen anyone can put in a claim and they just pay it no questions asked. the second one i had only for about 4 months and they froze my account for basically the same thing only this time no money was taken but they wont let me with drawl the money or transfer it all they will do is send a check and they wouldn't do that unless i formally ask for the check so so your selves a favor and steer clear of paypal