Paypal Users Beware!

Here is the PayPal Itunes debacle: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/23/paypal...ishing-attacks/

 

i hate paypal. ive been screwed by sellers and paypal does nothing about it. someone can literally send you a box with brick in it and as long as they have a tracking # you are the one that gets shafted!!

Lots of good info here. Some good practices I learned:

 

Keep money out of Paypal, never leave a balance

Link to a bank account with minimal funds

Alway fund the paypal transaction with a credit card when you don't know the seller

Never do large transactions over a couple hundred bucks. Use wire, cashier check instead.

 

 

If you guys think Paypal is a scam, try Amazon. As a new Seller, you can't have more than 1 or 2 negative feedback. Otherwise, your account is close and money is frozen for 6 months. Terrible place to sell. Great place to buy though.

Thanks for the story I hope you get it resolved. Your post made me realized that anyone could login to my account and make a transaction -- since my bank account is tied to PayPal, anyone can easily run a transaction totally cleaning out my account for whatever is in there ... and PayPal's assurance? "Don't worry, we will send you an email if any transactions occur via your bank account" ... really? An email? Gee thanks, it is reassuring knowing that once I get the email telling me about the $10,000 transaction that I have to go through the BS you're going through.

 

I removed my bank account per this thread ... screw them and their Policy ... my best wishes for you to get this thing resolved.

Same man. I removed mine as well and am now debating actually getting RID of my paypal.

In your scenario I would still add it, because your primary income is derived through usual channels. It's not a business-ending proposition if PayPal shuts you down for a month or two to investigate a bullshit claim from a customer.

 

Unfortunately, quickly taking any PayPal balance down to zero by transferring it out to your bank account isn't 100% foolproof because PayPal DOES have a legal right to go back into that bank account and withdraw funds directly if they determine you are the loser of a dispute.

 

However...

 

Nothing would stop you from transferring any PayPal balance to your verified and PayPal-linked bank account, and THEN transferring that money out of that linked bank account and into another unlinked account of yours at the same bank or other. That's about all you can do to protect yourself.

 

So glad I just read this thread!! I just signed up for Paypal Payment Pro this morning to have my application process online transactions directly instead of through Paypal Express. Developers have just started integrating it today and I called it just now. I'm going to end up using something else. With 4-6K worth of transaction per vendor a month, I don't think its a risk I am willing to take.

 

To the OP, sorry to hear about your loss!

Thanks for the support, guys. I did not hear anything from them today. I'm glad to hear that some of you are taking steps to prevent this sort of thing from happening to you. I'll update the thread when I hear from them. I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

Edit: Someone asked if the $12 payment and $1200 payment were both to the same person. They were not.

i hate paypal. ive been screwed by sellers and paypal does nothing about it. someone can literally send you a box with brick in it and as long as they have a tracking # you are the one that gets shafted!!

 

 

Exactly!!!

 

 

Paypal is owned by Ebay, believe it or not it has gotten 10 x better since Ebay bought it several years ago. I have used it for 9 years now for my business to accept payments, and its not any better for the merchant (me) either. Unfortunately it's so huge that I have to use it. When I first started, they locked my account for over 30 days and held hostage over 30k of my own money, it was all the money I had to my name at the time. Not a week has gone by where I havent cursed Paypal!

add me to the list. just deleted my bank account from my paypal account.

A Mac won't save you from the paypal issue. The worm in your computer sends out information to everyone on your contact list. Trojan Horses broad cast some odd information.

 

Basically, what is going on isn't that your security is at fault. Trojan's don't really do any actual damage, they're just enablers to more malicious software. What you want to find is malware on your computer (Malwarebytes is the best one), those things are the worst.

 

Mac's have viruses, Apple is just better at hiding them. Seriously, you're not safe if your computer is connected, regardless of how much stuff you have protecting yourself. It's a common misconception that Mac's don't get viruses. The truth is that there aren't enough Mac users yet to attack the software for it. Linux doesn't have many viruses for this reason as well, but they exist.

 

What happened? It could be numerous things, if it's showing your IP then basically the issue may actually reside in a couple of areas. Someone could be logged onto your network, the final numbers in the IP would tell you what system it was. xxx.xxx.xx.100 is usually the primary computer connected to the router. But if the Ip shown was 103, for instance, that means you have, at one point, had 4 computers on, if you only own devices that connect to wifi on at one time, then you have a fourth, unknown person on your computer.

 

To check this, you can go to all your computers and check the ipaddress at any time, if you have one number out of order, that means there's an extra device that showed up.

 

Another option is that you have an odd infested cookie on your computer. Cookies keep track of information for those sites that need to remember things. The thing to make sure with paypal is that the site should always direct you to an "shttp://" site to make sure the security works. Anyway, an infest cookie, which would be Paypal's issue, would automatically send a payment somewhere for an amount of the total cost. Seems odd that you made a 12 dollar exchange, yet '12'00 left your account.

 

This brings me to the third option. That person you made the 12 dollar exchange with is the culprit. It seems odd that it happened exactly at the same time, but never before that. He got your account email and sent a script yourway to send 1200 back...this is unlikely that he directly did something but could be possible that he has something to do with it. At the moment, all I can think of is a script, but I'm not sure on how he would be able to do it just yet, unless he was using a Rootkit or something. I know you said the money didn't go back to the same person, and it wouldn't have to in this case either.

 

I used to use it for Ebay ALL the time and never had a problem with it, given that there's nothing left in the account anyway, I keep it open incase. Hope things get resolved properly for you!

Hope everything works out Gary, even though it seems like a long shot!

 

A Mac won't save you from the paypal issue.

I was just about to type this. If you think using a Mac protects you from everything bad on the internet, you're sadly mistaken. Taking remote control over a Mac is actually a lot easier than a PC, proven by a lot of "hacker tests". They are just as vulnerable as Windows, in some areas even more. But obviously the threat against a Windows machine is far greater considering their domination in the market.

 

 

What happened? It could be numerous things, if it's showing your IP then basically the issue may actually reside in a couple of areas. Someone could be logged onto your network, the final numbers in the IP would tell you what system it was. xxx.xxx.xx.100 is usually the primary computer connected to the router. But if the Ip shown was 103, for instance, that means you have, at one point, had 4 computers on, if you only own devices that connect to wifi on at one time, then you have a fourth, unknown person on your computer.

They are most definitely not referring to his private IP, but his public IP.

 

Anyway Gary, you should request this information again (IP and timestamp of the transfer), so you can see for yourself that it did in fact come from your address. It's pretty crap that you can't see this in the transaction logs yourself.

just 'tuned in' to this thread....I am going to check my paypal account, never had issues, but definitely HEAR everyone's warnings!

 

thanks for sharing and hope it works out

Paypal is owned by Ebay, believe it or not it has gotten 10 x better since Ebay bought it several years ago. I have used it for 9 years now for my business to accept payments, and its not any better for the merchant (me) either. Unfortunately it's so huge that I have to use it. When I first started, they locked my account for over 30 days and held hostage over 30k of my own money, it was all the money I had to my name at the time. Not a week has gone by where I havent cursed Paypal!

 

 

Agreed. I still use it. It's convenient. When I feel like buying something for an online merchant, and they accept paypal, I always choose paypal. Simple sign it, confirm your purchase, no hassle. Don't sell too much online though, so don't have to worry about the other end as much. I think it's WORSE for a merchant. But what can you do..?

BUT MACS DON'T GET VIRUSES!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Totally kidding.

Well halle-fcuking-lujah! I just got off the phone with Paypal and they said that the email I sent compelled them to reverse the transaction. I have already withdrawn the money, and I am going to close my account. The girl basically said that I was lucky that the guy fell for my hollow threat. I can't tell you how it felt to be treated like a criminal. Like I was lying. It really burned my ass. Though this turned out well, I WILL NOT BE USING PAYPAL AGAIN.

 

Thanks for all of the support guys.

 

Now I can go back to shopping for a lift so I can squeeze one more car in the garage...

NICE!

 

So rare to hear a "win" story about this sort of thing on PayPal, congrats Gary.

Very nice, good to hear!

I always hear horror stories about paypal but they are still the most popular. I dont get it.

 

 

Paypal keeps asking me to verify my account by linking my bank account but I just dont want to risk that.

so, PayPal did good.

 

Nothing wrong with that.

Paypal is owned by Ebay, believe it or not it has gotten 10 x better since Ebay bought it several years ago. I have used it for 9 years now for my business to accept payments, and its not any better for the merchant (me) either. Unfortunately it's so huge that I have to use it. When I first started, they locked my account for over 30 days and held hostage over 30k of my own money, it was all the money I had to my name at the time. Not a week has gone by where I havent cursed Paypal!

 

Is there another reason to why you still use PayPal? Are their any perks? I am told its harder and more costly to implement a dedicated merchant account system, but I keep reading thats it worth the money.

 

Anyone using Authorize.net for their business? Had any problems?

 

Well halle-fcuking-lujah! I just got off the phone with Paypal and they said that the email I sent compelled them to reverse the transaction. I have already withdrawn the money, and I am going to close my account. The girl basically said that I was lucky that the guy fell for my hollow threat. I can't tell you how it felt to be treated like a criminal. Like I was lying. It really burned my ass. Though this turned out well, I WILL NOT BE USING PAYPAL AGAIN.

 

Thanks for all of the support guys.

 

Now I can go back to shopping for a lift so I can squeeze one more car in the garage...

 

Congrats! Glad it all got sorted out!

I use Authorize.net. No problems so far, but it's still relatively early in my business experience, so I haven't processed a ton of transactions yet or had any dispute-type issues to deal with yet.

 

I've heard that they're not the most beloved payment processor from a merchant satisfaction standpoint, but that's just thirdhand really.

 

No issues so far.

 

Is there another reason to why you still use PayPal? Are their any perks? I am told its harder and more costly to implement a dedicated merchant account system, but I keep reading thats it worth the money.

 

Anyone using Authorize.net for their business? Had any problems?

 

 

 

Congrats! Glad it all got sorted out!

 

I hate paypal!

 

they helped me "sale"my wife's video camera the guy that bought it on ebay placed a complaint with paypal about the camera, claiming that it didn't match the ebay listing, Paypal simply took the money out of my bank account and refunded him.

 

I asked the buyer to send back the camera minus P&H, GOOD LUCK, never got anything back, ebay account closed, email started bouncing, they were obviously running a scam.

 

I chased paypal for months, that time they didn't have a phone number you could call, they kept advising me to make arrangements with the buyer to have to goods sent back to me.

 

This occurred few years ago, I immediately canceled my paypal account.

I just canceled my PP as well. Don't use it a lot but it seems like a scetchy company. I had to click "Continue" 4 times + "Close account" before the account was closed.

Congratulations!