PayPal Users...Be on the Lookout for Fraudulent Charges to your Account!

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

I know this is OT from U.S. coins, but it is important...

 

Someone got into my PayPal account last night and donated $11 to an offshore charity called "Delyus Delyus". The charity's email was delyus87@yahoo.com.

 

A Google search for the supposed charity yields no results, so it is most likely a fake. Also, legitimate charities don't have yahoo email address. But mostly, I didn't authorize the transaction and there's no way that I'd ever give money to an offshore charity organization. That's just asking for trouble.

 

A call to PayPal quickly resolved the issue and the funds were immediately put back into my account. I was actually surprised about how fast PayPal fixed the problem. I changed my password, pin, and security questions, so I am hoping that my account is secure for now.

 

Why take just $11 instead of wiping out my account? That's like strong arming a bank and only walking out with a couple hundred bucks. My only guess is that the fraudster was planning to continue charging my account hoping that I wouldn't notice $11 charges. Or the $11 charge was a test to see if the account was valid and then they were planning to come back later and wipe out the account. Either way, PayPal users should be on the lookout for fraudulent charges like this on their accounts.

[PerryHall]

Many credit card fraudsters go after small amounts of money hoping the victim doesn't notice and won't do a chargeback.

[jpcienkus]

Thanks for the notice. I checked my account this morning and no unusual activity.

 

I'm glad you were able to resolve your problem. Sounds like they were just "testing" the account for a bigger purchase in the future.

[Matt_dac]

Exactly....in person and online thieves start with a small purchase and if it goes through - bam - off to the races. Glad you caught it...

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

Exactly....in person and online thieves start with a small purchase and if it goes through - bam - off to the races. Glad you caught it...

Yeah, me too. Fortunately, PayPal sends a text message to my phone for every transaction. That's really what let me know. If it weren't for that text message, it could have gone unnoticed.

[moneyhoney]

Smith, that is very true. I haven't used PayPal for Ebay but, have for other account. It depends on which department you get. They wanted to bill me for a some-kind of charge. I had already paid the bill and printed out the payment. I was surprised and was wondering why I didn't get a confirmation number. So when I presented them with the print-out, they wouldn't accept it. One is customer service and the other is the bank. Don't ask me to explain because I cant. BE smart ask for a confirmation number when paying..and during that time the print out payment didn't give out a confirmation number...

[e1cnr]

Can you tell us anymore? Was it a debit charge to a PAYPAL card? or did a phishing success get your password/info and someone got into your account and sent someone money?

[johnny9434]

will keep an eye out.

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

Can you tell us anymore? Was it a debit charge to a PAYPAL card? or did a phishing success get your password/info and someone got into your account and sent someone money?

The PayPal customer service told me that my PayPal password was compromised. But I am unsure how that happened. I am sure that it was not phishing. I didn't reply to any email messages from PayPal or anything like that.

 

And I don't think it was a debit charge from a PayPal card either. About two months ago, PayPal did send me a debit card, which I didn't ask for. But I've never used it, so I never activated it.

 

My only guess is...and this is just an off the wall guess...is that an eBay buyer got access to the email address that's linked to my PayPal account. This can easily be done by anyone that makes a purchase from you and pays via PayPal. And from there, my guess is that they figured out my password. However, my password (which is changed now) was "strong" according to PayPal's website when you create one. It was a combination of random capital and lower case letters and numbers. So it wasn't like a word or anything like that. So I don't know. But I went through all of my online passwords and changed them all this morning just to be safe.

[e1cnr]

I guess another possibility is a keylogger virus, watching all your computer movements.

[coinman_23885]

Many credit card fraudsters go after small amounts of money hoping the victim doesn't notice and won't do a chargeback.

 

+1

 

And sometimes it is followed by larger charges. The initial charge is small to test whether an account is active and whether it has a viable funding source. They are hoping to avoid detection until the fraudster is sure it has found its mark. It will often then abandon the operation and start new accounts, aliases, etc., after hitting large numbers at once.

[19Lyds]

I know this is OT from U.S. coins, but it is important...

 

Someone got into my PayPal account last night and donated $11 to an offshore charity called "Delyus Delyus". The charity's email was delyus87@yahoo.com.

 

A Google search for the supposed charity yields no results, so it is most likely a fake. Also, legitimate charities don't have yahoo email address. But mostly, I didn't authorize the transaction and there's no way that I'd ever give money to an offshore charity organization. That's just asking for trouble.

 

A call to PayPal quickly resolved the issue and the funds were immediately put back into my account. I was actually surprised about how fast PayPal fixed the problem. I changed my password, pin, and security questions, so I am hoping that my account is secure for now.

 

Why take just $11 instead of wiping out my account? That's like strong arming a bank and only walking out with a couple hundred bucks. My only guess is that the fraudster was planning to continue charging my account hoping that I wouldn't notice $11 charges. Or the $11 charge was a test to see if the account was valid and then they were planning to come back later and wipe out the account. Either way, PayPal users should be on the lookout for fraudulent charges like this on their accounts.

Why only $11?

 

Well, according to 2012 statistics there were 110 million active paypal users.

 

If I could get $1 from 1 /4 of those accounts, I would never have to worry about money again.

 

Besides, who's gonna miss a buck here or there?