Fighting with PayPal collection!

Anonymous · ‎11-15-2016

Hello friends, I used to have a PayPal account a year ago. Someone used my PayPal email without my knowledge and bought a phone from Ebay. After two weeks or so, PayPal tried to take money from my Bank Account but my Bank declined the payment since there was not enough money on the account. After few days I noticed my Banka account had a negative balance/return check something like that, I had to call my bank and tell them I know nothing about this.

The bank closed my account and that s it. After a year or so I received a collection from an agency saying that they want to collect 385 dollars on behalf of PayPal. They collection agency said we're ready to take 285 dollars of the 385 and then we'll clear everything, but the funny thing is I know nothing about this. They sent me a transaction on the PayPal which says I bought a phone from Ebay and it shipped to my house. I've never received the phone they're talking about, but I'm assuming someone in the family or friends used my account to buy the phone from ebay.

So my question is how I can find the person who did this? How Paypal can prove the person who bought this phone is me? I wanted to buy the money but again I can't pay something that I didn't use.

Anonymous · ‎11-15-2016

If Paypal is not responding to you and it isn't your fault, file a complain with CFPB. That will get their attention and they will promptly have someone look into.

rooeez · ‎11-15-2016

So it was purchased from your Ebay account or someone else's with your Paypal?

Anonymous · ‎11-15-2016

Someone used my PayPal Email to buy something from Ebay.

Strogen · ‎11-15-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
Someone used my PayPal Email to buy something from Ebay.

So you didnt contact paypal about the fraudluent use of your account, and rather, just closed your bank account?

Sorry, but PayPal is in the right trying to collect a debt here. Look at it from their perspective, you essentially stole from them.

If you really do suspect friends or family, then just pay the $285 and be done with it. You should have either called PayPal and reported fraud or dealt with the friend or family member who did this.

You wont find the person who did this, its not possible unless its friends or family and you ask them.

PayPal doesnt have to "prove" anything since you didnt report fraud and instead shadily closed the bank account. This is exactly the kind of behavior they deal with when it comes to people not paying, it doesnt suprise me they are coming after you.

Remember, if you did not report fraud then what is the lender or financial institution supposed to think? To them it was a genuine use of the account.

807 TU FICO Score 8.

rooeez · ‎11-15-2016

@Strogen wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Someone used my PayPal Email to buy something from Ebay.
So you didnt contact paypal about the fraudluent use of your account, and rather, just closed your bank account?

Sorry, but PayPal is in the right trying to collect a debt here. Look at it from their perspective, you essentially stole from them.

If you really do suspect friends or family, then just pay the $285 and be done with it. You should have either called PayPal and reported fraud or dealt with the friend or family member who did this.

You wont find the person who did this, its not possible unless its friends or family and you ask them.

PayPal doesnt have to "prove" anything since you didnt report fraud and instead shadily closed the bank account. This is exactly the kind of behavior they deal with when it comes to people not paying, it doesnt suprise me they are coming after you.

This was the point I was going to get to. If someone used your Paypal account on another Ebay account and you can show you have your own with the same Paypal then you would have to report the fraud and probably bring charges against your "friend" to prove to them it wasn't you. From their perspective, it's your account and the item was delivered to your address, why should they believe it was fraud. I hope you changed passwords or all your other accounts.

Anonymous · ‎11-15-2016

A few years back during the week of Christmas, my better half and I were sitting a home on our respective computers in our home office. I would typically receive emails from PayPal, and at the time was signed into MSN Messenger account. My paypal was linked to my MSN account. I received one message notification, but didn't open it, and then not 5 minutes later I received a second message notification.

Lo and behold, someone hacked BOTH my paypal account, as well as my MSN account. The 2 notifications were for paypal payments in the amound of $350 dollars each. I was like *WHOA*! I immediately signed into Paypal hoping that what I was seeing was a hoax, but it was true indeed. Then I contacted Paypal to report fraud. Paypal told me that they would launch an investigation and it would take 30 days or something like that. I told them that I expected no monies to be taken out of my bank account. They informed me that they could not stop the transaction, that I would need to contact my bank. That's crazy, right?

I reached out to the 800 number on the back of my debit card, and they told me that there was nothing they could do as they didn't see any charges on my debit card. I would instead need to contact the bank directly. Mind you, this was a Friday night when all of this happened.

Saturday morning we head to the banking institution- a local credit union. We sign in to talk with an account representative. Explained what happened and was told, "No problem we will take care of it. Monies will not be drawn from your account." *Whew* - we feel so much better. But guess what?

On Monday, the monies were WITHDRAWN from my bank account! WTH?!?!

I called the CU up and they told me that they had no record of me coming in at all. I told them to check their sign in logs. I was the 2nd singed person on the list, and the first person was one of my co-workers who came in on an unrelated issue. The CU told me that I would need to talk with Paypal.

I again get in contact with Paypal that same Monday. And Paypal gives me the runaround indicating that they had not completed their investigation yet. WTH?!?!?!?!

I had to threaten them with contacting the news papers and TV news to report to those outlets that Paypal was also ripping me off too. Long story short, the refunded my money immediately. And also provided some tips on how to better secure my Paypal account. I had already changed the passwords on both Paypal as well as MSN. There is a but though.

BUT....

Would you believe that going thru my sent email on MSN, that they sent two email messages pretending to be me talking with them, and them responding back to both messages. They pretended that I initiated the transaction to buy an AC unit for my home. I also upgraded the security on my MSN account too.

Long story short, is thieves can be very crafty, so be sure to do a police report, etc, etc.. Always protect your accounts, as well as your personal information as best that you can. Never assume that things will work themselves out.

Anonymous · ‎11-15-2016

Thank you. I didn't call PayPal, in fact I didn't know they have a phone number. Now I kicked out 5 of my family members from my house. I'm going to pay the 285 dollars and close the case. Now I only have one more question, should I pay PayPal directly or I pay the collection agency. Thank you guys.

Anonymous · ‎11-16-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you. I didn't call PayPal, in fact I didn't know they have a phone number. Now I kicked out 5 of my family members from my house. I'm going to pay the 285 dollars and close the case. Now I only have one more question, should I pay PayPal directly or I pay the collection agency. Thank you guys.

Most folks do not know that Paypal can be called, but you have to initiate a request to call. Paypal does not directly advertise contact phone numbers. But the link is:

https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/contact/call

It will prompt you to logon to your account if you are not already logged into it. Then they wil provide you with a passcode that will only be good for the next 60 minutes.

You could try calling Paypal and see what they advise you to do. Typically though, the collection agency must be paid directly. If you were to contact them, I would request a pay for deletion just to see what they tell you. Best case scenario is that they remove it. Worst case scenario is they tell you no- but at least they are paid in full. And being paid in full helps when your credit report is under a manual review ;-)

Anonymous · ‎12-01-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
A few years back during the week of Christmas, my better half and I were sitting a home on our respective computers in our home office. I would typically receive emails from PayPal, and at the time was signed into MSN Messenger account. My paypal was linked to my MSN account. I received one message notification, but didn't open it, and then not 5 minutes later I received a second message notification.

Lo and behold, someone hacked BOTH my paypal account, as well as my MSN account. The 2 notifications were for paypal payments in the amound of $350 dollars each. I was like *WHOA*! I immediately signed into Paypal hoping that what I was seeing was a hoax, but it was true indeed. Then I contacted Paypal to report fraud. Paypal told me that they would launch an investigation and it would take 30 days or something like that. I told them that I expected no monies to be taken out of my bank account. They informed me that they could not stop the transaction, that I would need to contact my bank. That's crazy, right?

I reached out to the 800 number on the back of my debit card, and they told me that there was nothing they could do as they didn't see any charges on my debit card. I would instead need to contact the bank directly. Mind you, this was a Friday night when all of this happened.

Saturday morning we head to the banking institution- a local credit union. We sign in to talk with an account representative. Explained what happened and was told, "No problem we will take care of it. Monies will not be drawn from your account." *Whew* - we feel so much better. But guess what?

On Monday, the monies were WITHDRAWN from my bank account! WTH?!?!

I called the CU up and they told me that they had no record of me coming in at all. I told them to check their sign in logs. I was the 2nd singed person on the list, and the first person was one of my co-workers who came in on an unrelated issue. The CU told me that I would need to talk with Paypal.

I again get in contact with Paypal that same Monday. And Paypal gives me the runaround indicating that they had not completed their investigation yet. WTH?!?!?!?!

I had to threaten them with contacting the news papers and TV news to report to those outlets that Paypal was also ripping me off too. Long story short, the refunded my money immediately. And also provided some tips on how to better secure my Paypal account. I had already changed the passwords on both Paypal as well as MSN. There is a but though.

BUT....

Would you believe that going thru my sent email on MSN, that they sent two email messages pretending to be me talking with them, and them responding back to both messages. They pretended that I initiated the transaction to buy an AC unit for my home. I also upgraded the security on my MSN account too.

Long story short, is thieves can be very crafty, so be sure to do a police report, etc, etc.. Always protect your accounts, as well as your personal information as best that you can. Never assume that things will work themselves out.

Wow. I feel the need to change all my passwords now. Sorry that happened to you!