Paypal Account Hacked

[Guest prescience]

My Paypal account was hacked this morning

 

They were quite cunning too, having hacked the account, they

1. added a new e-mail address

2. changed the login password

3. changed the security questions.

 

Paypal infomed by e-mail of all of the above but of course when I tried to genuinely reset my password, there are 3 options,

- enter your full bank account number

- enter your credit card number

- or answer you security questions

 

Of course trying to do the 3rd of these resulted in due to 3. above. I wasn't about to eneter the others with someone potentially having account access.

 

Got on the phone to paypal (linked number in their e-mails, which I checked out that these were genuine first) and they informed that the spoofer had issued an e-cheque for £137 but to a non-registered e-mail address but they couldn't cancel it from their end but advised me to contact bank. Fortunately, no credit card transactiosn were made.

 

The account has been put limited mode pending investigation. The bank have been informed and have stopped the PayPal direct debit (which is how the £137 might appear) - so should be OK

 

Feel like overloading the spoof e-mail address with seven kinds of sh*te but probably not a good idea.

 

GET A PROPER JOB YOU LAZY F*CKING SCAMMING B*STARDS

 

Have to say once I got through to PayPal they were great

 

Edit - if this ever happens to you, the bona fide PayPal contact number is 08707 307191 - might be worth noting, just in case

[Removed]

thatnks for the heads up Dorian!

 

i had my ebay account hacked somehow a while back and the guy listed 100+ items to sell @ Buy it now prices, of course very cheap prices for branded stuff.

 

They blocked it immediately but he had changed all the details too. I hope he actually dies of the most painful death, bastard son of a ****

[Guest prescience]

Ta mate. The worst thing is, I'm pretty calm in a crisis but when you're in that situation and there's a lot of money at stake (bank account, credit cards etc), and you can't access your account, its easy to make a slip-up and divulge information you would not do at any other time if you were calm.

 

Fortunately, I don't think I did but I typed the first few numbers of my bank account to unlock my paypal account before I stopped myself whether that was a risk anyway, I'm not too sure.

 

It was a horrible hour on the phone though

[Digsy]

Bloody hell, Dorian, the bastards!

 

Just shows that however good the security is there's some scammy bastard just as clever. Did they say how they rumbled it?

[Guest prescience]

Well, they didn't rumble it as such. They sent me 3 auto e-mails to say the new e-mail address had been added, the password changed and the security questions changed. The e-mails invited me to get back to them if these had not been changed by me - which is where I needed to use the phone as explained above.

 

They are investigating and I will let you know if anything of general interest comes out of that.

 

I will say again when I got through on the phone, they were terrific and supportive (both them and the bank said there would be no financial loss)

 

I was pretty glad I was online when this happened, so I could act speedily to minimise any impact.

[JimmyJam75]

Crikey Dorian, thats a complete mare.

 

Nice heads up though - and I've kept a note of that paypal contact number just incase!

 

hope u get it sorted..

 

JJ

[M13KYF]

thanks for the warnig Dorian

 

stuff

[Guest prescience]

Heard nothing back yet - the Resolutions Department are either nine-to-five or they were part of the scam all along

 

With bank account (where I stupidly left the Z sale money etc) and 2 credit cards, I could potentially have been down £51k and then I might well have been the subject of the questioning. This is partly my own stupid fault for propagating a fairly secure password too widely

[Emperor Ming]

A bit of advice I was given before I set up my pay pal account.

Open an account with NO OVERDRAFT FACILITIES to use JUST for pay pal.

Put in it just enough to run what ever you do on E shopping.

If it gets too full move cash out (You can always put it back)

Don't leave too much cash in your pay pal account - only what you need.

That way they can only get what you can afford to loose.

Just my thoughts

Ming the Helpful

[Guest prescience]

Ming,

 

That is good advice and complacency, in part, has got me into trouble.

 

One interesting and perhaps disturbing fact about PayPal is that the security questions are irrelevant if you know the password - you can change them immediately to whatever you wish. You do not have to notify that you have forgotten the answers.

 

The only place where they play a role is the 3rd of 3 options when you have forgotten your password, the other 2, as I note above, being enetering you full bank account number or your full credit card/debit card number - neither of which is appealing if you have been hacked. But since they can be changed once hacked, they are useles in that role too.