Paypal and account skimming...

[azekeil]

I know a number of my friends have had their bank accounts skimmed, usually for online gambling or other difficult-to-trace transactions. I have heard horror stories in the past about PayPal's security, but I'm considering getting a PayPal account. Just on a whimsy, I thought I'd run up a quick poll to see if there's any correlation between 'people who own a PayPal account', and 'people who've had their bank account skimmed'. I am not suggesting for a second that this is true, but it would go some way to allaying my fears.

Please note, if you've had a different account to the one that is associated with PayPal skimmed, can you please not fill in the poll and leave a comment instead? Ta.

[Poll #964987]

Comments

[serena-lesley.livejournal.com]

I have a Paypal account. I have had my account skimmed over Christmas after a spate of general online shopping, making it impossible to narrow down the security breach. However I've just checked, and ut's my SAVINGS account that's used for Paypal, and my CURRENT account that was skimmed.

[kattiwampus.livejournal.com]

I hope I haven't jinxed myself!

[jadine.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of this, and virtually everyone I know has a Paypal account.

For the record, I have two Paypal accounts, one of them for seven years.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

I guess my point is - you wouldn't. It's not directly traceable. I'm merely looking for correlations that may or may not warrant further investigation.

[jadine.livejournal.com]

Let me clarify: I haven't heard of anyone I know getting their bank account skimmed. And Paypal's going to be using the same security for US and UK accounts, whereas bank practices are likely to differ.

[caescarna.livejournal.com]

I've had my Paypal account since 2002, and I've never heard of this happening.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

I guess my point is - you wouldn't. It's not directly traceable. I'm merely looking for correlations that may or may not warrant further investigation.

[ev1ldonut.livejournal.com]

My card was cloned. Nowt to do with online stuff. So although I have suffered account fraud, it had nothing to do with paypal.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

I have a paypal account, linked to my bank account. My bank account has been cleaned out once, but it was done by copying my debit card (and was definitely done locally), so nothing to do with paypal.

I'm not sure which option to tick - I think the second is most accurate for your purposes.

[microchip.livejournal.com]

I think those who get caught with Paypal and getting their accounts messed with generally got slapped with a phishing mail.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

True - but I'm talking bank accounts getting skimmed, not PayPal accounts...

[microchip.livejournal.com]

I know. I was more referring to people either falling for a notice from their Bank, or getting PayPal details via a phishing mail, then promptly fishing out the bank details... although I don't think that's all that easy anymore.

Security is a lot better than it used to be, and simple things like the credit card number being fully visible is a damn good start.

[anti-girl.livejournal.com]

yeah I once had a really obvious phishing email from 'paypal' but I let them know and they jumped on it straight away. Its the usual case of, yes I'm sure there can be problems with having a PayPal account, like any account, don't let people know your pin, don't let cashiers take the card out of your sight, that kind of thing. As long as you are sensible you shouldn't have to worry :)
x

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing this is the case, but I have heard other horror stories about interactions between people and the guarantees they offer, etc etc. This is just the first stage of several bits of research I'm going to do before I trust them with my money :)

[growf.livejournal.com]

For the purposes of experimentation I've just changed which credit card is attached to my PayPal account.

To date, I've had two different gold cards ripped off (chip-dumping both times) both of which also happened to be the card on my PayPal account. I've just put my regular card on there instead.

To be honest, I don't think it was PayPal that the details were stolen from. A couple of details on the Ladbrokes account opened fraudulently in my name could not have been obtained from PayPal.

[growf.livejournal.com]

From someone who's been targetted twice, can I just say that my bank, smile.co.uk, picked up the fraud both times and refunded me as appropriate without my intervention. When the fraud was attempted on Ladbrokes' site (to which I have database access), the second card they tried on the account wasn't as lucky.

Since then I've left instructions on my account stating that I will never use my credit cards on a gambling site so that a fraud team is in no doubt about such transactions. It may well be worth contacting your bank and telling them the same.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Hm, that's an interesting point.

However, I don't really have a lot of faith in giving my bank instructions: last time when I lost my card a payment got declined even though I specifically said to let it through and I had to go around clearing up after them.

[beckyandkeggy.livejournal.com]

maybe not what you're asking, but paypal was linked to my Natwest current account and I had a spate of transactions between xmas and new year in 2005 which were not authorised by me. Someone had hacked into my paypal account and used it to buy credits for online gaming (a few hundred quid) - I know I wasn't the victim of a phishing email either!

Paypal did refund me in the end - but the process was long, involved swearing affidavits etc and as the transactions were mostly made in US$ or euros they were refunded in the same currency. Except between the date of the transactions and the date of refund the exchange rates changed meaning I actually got less back. A lot of arguing later I finally got the full amounts refunded.

I now link paypal to a credit card so if the same happens again I won't be out of pocket until the refunds come in.

Other paypal problems - I once paid for a buy it now item on eBay twice (yes, I refreshed my page too soon!). There seems to be no easy remedy to this - the seller refunded me but less the fees they had been charged. Neither of us had any luck getting them out of paypal but I wasn't terribly tenacious that time ;-)