My Paypal Account Was Hacked

Below, I share my personal experience with Paypal Fraud. Someone hacked into my Paypal account and stole a few hundred dollars.

The holiday season has just begun and I really needed that money for my family. Thanksgiving is two days away, and this Paypal incident couldn't have had worst timing.

Unfortunately, the holiday season is the most vulnerable time for fraud on and offline. As fast as new methods are being created to protection us from theft, thieves are coming up with cleaver new ways to find loop holes in the security protection systems.

For someone like myself, that earns residual income online, I rely on sites such as Paypal to process my payments.

If this has happen to you please leave a comment below. Don't forget to change your online password every 90 days. It's time consuming but worth it in the long run.

If you suspect that someone has hacked into your paypal account, call Paypal at once by dialing 1-800-432-1000.

Today, someone stole money from my paypal account. They did this on November 18th and today is November 24th. I found out about it after being declined in line at the store. I'm very upset right now but, I wanted to warn others about this and also tell you of my experience while it's fresh in my mind.

Just a few days before Thanksgiving my husband and I went shopping for food and spirits to get ready for dinner this Thursday. We normally count on using our Paypal account around the holidays. This holiday season, we were really counting on the money in our Paypal account because my husband was recently laid off.

We did some shopping with cash, and then used our Paypal account to pay for the groceries. Our paypal card was declined, and I knew that we had more then enough to cover our bill. We got out of line and went home.

I quickly went online to view my Paypal statement, and saw that someone had changed my account information and also had withdrawn money. To add insult to injury, they had also withdrew money from my linked bank account which was still in pending status. After panicking for about 10mins, my husband calmed me down and suggested that I call Paypal directly.

The paypal customer service representative that handle my phone call was very nice. He was able to reverse all charges and gave me very valuable information on how to prevent this in the future. He suggested that I change all of my account passwords every 90 days.

Although time consuming, after our call ended, I changed all of my online passwords. Each of my accounts, including Paypal, all now have unique new passwords.

Even though it will take 7-10 business days, to reverse and correct all fraud charges, I'm thankful that this was caught in a reasonable amount of time.

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Today November 29th, took a turn for the worst. I receive payment from Google Adsense and Amazon but, since my account is overdrawn (due to Paypal Fraud ) I could not access this money. On top of this, I was charged a 31 dollar overdraft fee!

I decided to go into the bank today and open up a fraud case. I should have done this last week but, I assumed that the money would be back into my account by now.

The Paypal customer service representative told me that he cancelled the fraudulent money transfer. It was in pending status at the time, and apparently hit my Paypal account before they had a chance to stop it.

After explaining this to my bank, they promised to add the money back into my account within 3 days. I had to sign a affidavit, to expedite the process and there will be more paper work showing up in the mail for me to sign this week.

Although the money is back in my paypal account, it still remains locked, which also means that I'm unable to transfer money into my bank account to reverse the overdraft charge. I'm waiting for paper work to come in the mail from paypal to verify my identity. More waiting............ this sucks!

My personal bank suggested that I shut down my bank account and open a new one. Considering that Paypal did not protect me from Fraud, it's likely that the thieves may have my banking information as well. I will have to do this as soon as all of the charges are reversed and the money is transfered back in to my bank account.

This is such a hassle. I'm thankful that I'll be getting my money back but, this has caused me to be late with my car payment. Just when I start making my monthly car payment, with a little something left over from my online earnings, this happens. This is very frustrating, to say the least.

I will update you when all is well. Stay tuned by bookmarking this article.

Update:

Today December 3rd I finally got all of this resolved. I've disconnected my bank account from my paypal account and I suggest you do the same.

Apparently, this has been happening a lot lately. Fraud of this kind, to a person who earns income online, could mean late bill paying ( I'm currently late on my car payment ) and other hardships. Sign up for a Papal Debit card and use that instead. Happy Holidays!..... Finally!