Its finally happend....ive bin internet frauded! help!

[adomakin]

I got my barclaycard bill yesterday and theres a transaction on there for £785 payable to some piece of $hit via my paypal account. someone has hacked my paypal account and transfered the money from my barclaycard to thier own paypal account......further down on the bill is a credit to my account for £740 from the same piece of $hits account. I phoned paypal and they told me that their system recognised the security breach and refunded the money. the difference in figures was down to the change in exchange rate between the money being taken and then credited (took about 5 days) turns out the money was transfered to US dollars. anyway, they made up the difference, appologised etc but now im a bit paranoid about online security. my card has protection, im just a bit uneasy about how that prick got my details so easily. I run Norton internet security and regularly liveupdate. i run full system scans every now and again, i run adaware every now and again too. what am i not doing? what else can i do? im not going to stop paying for stuff on the internet, i just want to be a bit more on top of it....any advice would be much appreciated

[Sonic dB]

Close the pay pal account & be careful of who you give personal info to.

[adomakin]

Sonic, no one has access to my paypal account other than myself, so im 100% sure that its a virus/tracker/online id theft sort of thing. what im after is a better understanding of how to keep on top of these computer threats

[adomakin]

bummmmp

[slakjaw]

Close the account.

[Moneyguy1]

From all the internet source horror stories, having a Paypal account is tantamount to Russian Roulette.

[pwd72s]

I will not give out my credit card numbers on the net just for this reason. However, on a similar thread here some years ago, somebody suggesting talking to your banker, getting a credit card just for paypal that has a pre set lower limit....that way you can at least limit your losses.

[Moneyguy1]

It's funny...I do not have a Paypal Account, yet I am continually e-mailed that there is a problem with it.

[pwd72s]

Hoot! Me too. I quit going to ebay. Why? It's become the world's largest fencing operation, and I'm not interested in being a buyer of stolen goods.

[adomakin]

to be honest my barclaycard is used soley for online stuff. it has a no quible online fraud policy which is why im not really worried about the actual fraud itself, more the fact that i don't have adequate protection against the koc sukkas that want my private info. so what can i do about that issue?

[hatpix]

You got played. The only way anyone has access to your PayPal account, is with your email and password. Somehow they got your passowrd, probably via phishing. Operator error.

I've had a PayPal account for 8 or 9 years, over 1000 transactions without a problem. I am still using my original 12 digit password, which I don't use for anything but this account.

[adomakin]

Phishing? Operator error? can you explain a bit Ken? when you say operator error do you mean me?

[Chocaholic]

5 years plus with Paypal. Never a problem. Remeber, it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

[stomachmonkey]

Almost had my ebay account suspended for unpaid fees. The card on file had expired and I forgot to update ebay.

They sent me numerous emails but I have been in a long time habit of immediately deleting anything that claims to be from ebay.

Had a huge fight with them about it. Told them that it's not my fault that the only method they use to communicate with customers can, by their own admission, not be trusted.

[jrdavid68]

Originally posted by adomakin
Phishing? Operator error? can you explain a bit Ken? when you say operator error do you mean me?

The most common Phishing scam that could come in to play here is that you received an email that appeared to be from PayPal that wasn't. Probably has absolutely nothing to do with your setup at home.

The thieves make the email look very real and get the recipient to click on a link that is supposed to go to the given website - in this case PayPal. Although the site may look real, it's a fake. The user then proceeds to type in their email ID and password - which of course won't work because it's not really PayPal's website. And just like that, the thief has a record of your ID and password.

Often the user will then go directly to paypal's website (like they should have done in the first place) to check their account and of course all looks well. The thief will then later log in to your account and the rest is history.

Never click on a link included in an email. Always open your browser and go directly to the website to log in to your financial sites, PayPal, eBay and the rest.

[hatpix]

Originally posted by adomakin
Phishing? Operator error? can you explain a bit Ken? when you say operator error do you mean me?

Phishing is explained above. Yes, I meant that probably someone pulled the old switcheroo and when you thought you were putting in your password on PayPal's site, it was going elsewhere.

Whenever you use a site to pay someone or enter sensitive information, make sure the URL starts with https:// the S stands for secure, make sure the address that follows is correct also.

Originally posted by stomachmonkey
Almost had my ebay account suspended for unpaid fees. The card on file had expired and I forgot to update ebay. [abridged]... the only method they use to communicate with customers can, by their own admission, not be trusted.

There is now a second way; on your "My eBay" page there's a link to "My Messages". Anything eBay emails you, they will will also put a dupe message in that folder.

[Christien]

My experience has been that if you phone the CC company, tell them it was fraud, they send you an afidavit, you read/sign it, have it notarized by a lawyer, fax it back to them, they reverse the charges. That's how it went down with me a couple years ago when I found some piddly charges from some store in Arizona, or something. Granted it was on $20 or $30, but they reversed it with no problems.