Sunday 28 September 2014

Been a frustrating day

At least yesterday was.  Don't know if anyone else has come up against this problem but.....  I buy quite a bit of stuff on line and as a rule use Paypal.  Recently they offered a delayed payment scheme, you paid after you had received the goods, which I thought was sensible.  So at the beginning of the month I purchased an item and opted for this method  On checking my bank statement, which arrived yesterday, I noticed something very odd.  One of the Paypal reference numbers, and my direct debit mandate number had been used five times.  Only one was for the correct amount.  I checked my bank account, the mandate number referred to the correct item and had been completed.  I checked my account with the seller, same again, checked with Paypal and only one item was referenced against my debit - not the five stated on my account and had been completed.

I spoke to my bank and they agreed it was very odd and suggested I speak directly to Paypal.  The bank very kindly returned the monies, which were for very small amounts, to my account.  I contacted Paypal to let them know that unauthorised payments had been made on my account.  They categorically denied this and declined my claim.  I wasn't actually making a financial claim as my bank had already returned the money to me.  But they refused to look into the matter any further.  I asked them why they don't have a record of these transactions (apart from the original legitimate one), to whom did they pay the money (who was the seller etc).  And if they do not have a record of these payments to themselves why not.  So far they haven't replied.

This has seriously destroyed my faith in Paypal with whom I have always been happy.  I will see what happens next.  As I said previously, I am not out of pocket as the bank refunded me without question.  However I am concerned that Paypal security may have been breached, particularly in relation to their reference numbers linking to a direct debit from my bank account.  This has only happened since I took up the delayed payment option.  Has anyone else had this problem?  I understand that when breaches have been made it is normal for the perpetrators to withdraw small amounts at first then progress to larger amounts.

1 comment:

Sandra Wyman said...

I once had a similar problem - with £500+ amount being debited from a credit card for something I hadn't bought - clearly I'd been hacked. It was two days before Christmas and I had a lot to do before leaving to visit family; luckily I was in time to stop the payment. Tried to contact Paypal as a matter of urgency but no-one was answering, so had to leave an email. They were most put out I'd cancelled the payment and really were not helpful. I stopped the card the payment was made against and closed my Paypal account and haven't used it again.