I do a lot of shopping online. I used to have a dummy card I shopped with but stopped (probably will go back to this). I typically do all of my shopping through Paypal with sellers I am familiar with. I never had an issue until today. I woke up this morning with an email from PayPal stating a sent a payment to someone. I know I did not send anyone anything (especially that time of morning) nor did I have a transaction in this amount. I was able to cancel the transaction because the person who set up the bogus account did not verify it (thank God) Anyway, I had to change my password and etc. I was unable to access my account after this though. I also found the person hacked into my email address linked to the PP account. PP has been great. I said all of this to say, PLEASE check your accounts regularly (I check multiple times a day) AND change your passwords from time to time on PP and email addresses. Unfortunately, I am unable to receive emails for now but I was able to change my password.I'm working to get everything restored. Tis the season for desperate people to do ugly things to people. So be careful!

That's horrible!!! I kept getting phone calls from someone saying they were from Dell and that my computer had viruses and they needed me to let them access my computer to fix the problem.. When I said no, one guy told me to go to hell and the other two people hung up on me...

• debby_westbrook Said:

I know there are scammers out there, but the idea that some low-life who tried to scam you had the nerve to tell YOU to go to h@ll seems so absurd it's funny. I believe you, but I can't understand why he'd bother. talk about nerve!

Definitely a good point to update and change those things. I need to do it more frequently myself, so thank you for the reminder.

My response to the request to let them access my computer remotely was to ask if he thought I was a moron and to hang up on hm.

A computer scam like that was going on around here a bit ago and we were told to report them to the RCMP. I had something similar happen to me with my PP acount. I got an e-mail from PP saying they charged my card with $$ for a transaction. I immediately reported it to them, all was cleared up and I had to change my password also. I have a seperate card that I use just for PP. All ended well.
Desperate times call for desperate measures though. Keep watch over all your bank accounts and credit cards

wow thanks for pointing that out... I just updated my credit card to pp. I hardly use pp very much. But when I do work for someone like pictures you something. I usually most of the time tell them to pay me through pp. I haven't had a problem yet. I was going to link up my savings account to my pp so what ever extra money I make that people sent me I can transfer into my savings. Now every reading this post I am glad I haven't link up my bank account to pp. Because you never know.

Justie

I think I can ask some of you that might know this. Is it safe to link your savings account to paypal? I ask my bank this but they said they don't know anything about linking up one of your bank accounts to pp. I know someone who link their checking account to pp since 1999 and they had no problem what so ever. I just wanted to link up my account so I could transfer money I recevied from a customer who photo I fix up for and he sent me money for the work. I just wanted to transfer it into my savings account. Just wondered if you ladies or guys have link or of your accounts to pp if so did you have any problems or smooth sailing with it so far?

Justie

I had my Paypal account hacked too. Someone bought a premium gold 1 year membership for xbox live. I called them and had the problem ironed out that same day. It took 2 days to get my money back and Paypal did give me a security key card for free. So no more hackers!

I bank at Regions bank and they have a card called a NOW card which is what I link to Pay Pal.

I transfer money to it on line anytime I want to and there is no charge to transfer money to it.

If it gets stolen its only worth what is on the card, and if I notify the bank they cancel it and put the balance on a new card and send it to me. They also act to recover the stolen money like they would on a credit card.

The part I like is that it is not linked in any way to my checking account that would allow someone who stole it to get into my account. It is a free standing card although I can fill it form my account.

Works perfect for me. Whenever it gets below a certain amount I put more on it in seconds by going into my account on line.

I use it for Pay Pal and online purchases as well ausing it in stores instead of the debit card I used to use all the time. This is safer.

That is so bad. Sorry for your bad experience. I had my bank account hacked twice and Wells Fargo was great and prompt in helping me to get the situation resolved. Still, it is such a bad experience!

• Tina scraps Said:

They haven't called back since I told them I reported them to Dell..

The money was refunded to my checking account and I have access to my email account.
@Justie, PP is good at investigating and taking care of business. If I were you, and I will be doing this, opening a separate account and linking it to PP. I would also have limited access to the PP account. Meaning you have a limited dollar amount that can be taken out of your account.
This had a happy ending, but I will be more careful where I use my cards...online and brick and mortar!

Wow, I am so glad you caught it before anything really got out of hand. I use one certain email address for buying online too, that way I get alerts. Sounds like PP did a good job for you.

I saw on TV news yesterday that people are doing online buying now by the billions of dollars, it's much easier that way. I have almost completed my Christmas Shopping and all of that so far except for one thing has been on line.

That much money...will be targeted by the unscrupulous.

That's a really good policy Henri Jean. Very Smart.

• debby_westbrook Said:

I too have had that call several times. The last time I pretended to go along with them and after about 30 mins. I told them I wasn't really doing anything but keeping them from scamming another person. Boy was the guy mad!

• mrsmiller Said:

Where's the LIKE button?? LOVE THIS!

Glad you caught it before too much damage was done. That stinks!

I keep getting text messages saying I won a drawing and get a $1000.00 gift card for Best Buy (and sometimes it's Target). I guess people really fall for it or it wouldn't be worth the scammer's effort to randomly text people.

Oh, these posts bring back memories....It happened to me a couple of months ago. Same thing on PP. I was selling all my Cricut items on evil bay and everything was fine. Months later and since I check my bank accounts, PP account, E-mails and everything in between at least twice a day, I noticed some suspicious transactions. They have hacked into my PP account and reissued all my shipping labels for twice or three times the original amount and shipped to some weird country in the U.S.S.S aka RUSSIA.

Luckily, PP and my banks were quite helpful in resolving the issues but I had to cancel both of my bank account and open new ones, check canceled and reissued, debit/credit cards reissued, password changed on everything and not to mention having no access to anything for a few days 'till everything was monitored and clear...Better safe than sorry but what a nightmare! Seriously, there are people out there that have nothing better to do that ruin it for everyone else.

After reading all your posts I must say that I am really lucky. I haven't been hacked. I do change my passwords quite often though and my boyfriend has made sure that I have extra long passwords which drives me crazy but then he gives me statistics about how often people get hacked. The more complicated your password is the better off you will always be. I really like that card that Henri has with Regions bank. I want a card like that!!

• mrsmiller Said: