SS: Paypal & Gmail hacked - $1600 stolen

Jenny · 07-07-2008, 12:45 AM

Ugh. So about the same time that Scott was getting his new job, we found out that someone had hacked into my Paypal account and withdrawn $1600 from my bank account and sent it to someone in what turns out to be Norway. It was $1000 converted into euros, which was about $1600. There was also an $18 payment the same way to Skype... We're assuming they either tried that first to see if it would work or just wanted to do Skype.

Now, I know, I know. I shouldn't have had it attached to my bank account. Please don't lecture me. You can't say anything I haven't said to myself while I kicked my own ass. I've had the account for 7 years and never had a single iota of a problem, the whole time having had it attached to my acct. So... I know it was stupid, but I don't need/want to hear it from anyone here.

So anyway, I called Paypal immediately when I saw the transactions, filed a fraud claim or whatever. They said something about putting the money back into the bank account temporarily while they did their investigation but they didn't expect to find any problems. Sure enough, that night, $1600 was in my bank account. Great. Took us back from $1100 negative balance to the $500 or so we had in there before. (The bank had agreed to waive any overdraft fees until the 7th or before whenever it was cleared up.) Later that day (or maybe next day?), I got an email from Paypal saying they had not found sufficient evidence showing that we had not made the charges so they were denying my claims. I was horrified. A) In the 7 years I've been with them, none of my charges has been over like $100. not even sure they have been that much! and B) why the hell would I do that when it caused me to go $1100 in the hole in my bank account? Ok, so after fretting some, Scott called Paypal back himself. Said, what can we do to show some proof that we didn't do this? (Oh, and in the meantime, we figured out from the subject line of the Paypal that it was for some WoW character! We have never played WoW, let alone have WoW installed here!) They said they would put it back through the process to see if they missed anything.

Knowing that they won't find anything they didn't find before and knowing that there is no way they will get their money back so they CERTAINLY aren't going to just believe us and give us our money back, Scott decided to go in to the bank on Saturday morning. So anyway, they are sending us some paperwork (affidavits & whatnot) to sign and bring (or send? I dunno) in and we'll go from there. Honestly, we're not getting our hopes up about getting it back from them either. We've prepared ourselves in using this as a hard lesson learned.

In the meantime, Scott's parents were gracious enough to loan us $1200 to help pay the bills, since we aren't sure when the paychecks will start coming in from his new job (yay!), so we'll gradually pay them back from his paychecks.

I of course immediately changed my Paypal account pw & security question (they actually locked it until I did). But... Scott had me check my gmail boxes just out of curiosity that night too (when he talked to Paypal) and lo and behold, there was an email from Blizzard in my trash about changing the WoW account from j****** (??? no idea why that was all starred out, I'm just assuming it was my email address) to some other one with a .ai end or something. So apparently they hacked into my gmail account and from there got into my Paypal acct. (I don't *think* the pw's were the same, but I may be mistaken. It wasn't a word you could find in the dictionary, but it was one that might have been able to be broken, I guess.

)

So anyway, the Paypal & gmail pw's are both now different than they were and different from each other as well and now they are much more secure. We plan on waiting to hear from Paypal about the investigation and then regardless of how they find, I'm closing the account and saying FU.

So... There it is. All the ups and downs of the job thing, my computer having major issues (reformatting took about 15 tries, the first 14 getting BSOD toward the beginning of the job), and now the money thing. Plus, Scott has a bad cold and I think I caught it because my throat is beginning to hurt. Ugh. I wish I liked alcohol.

I need a hug. *sigh* lol

Jenny · 07-07-2008, 12:50 AM

Oh, and we emailed the guy just out of curiosity that was sent the money from the paypal transaction. He emailed back saying don't try and scam me, etc etc. He & Scott emailed back & forth a couple of times and if he is the thief, he's a damn good liar. Maybe we are just naive, but it seems like he sold his WoW character because of needing money for some family health issues and whoever scammed us bought it using our money. Don't know if that is true or not, but since he didn't just ignore our email, we're thinking maybe it is.

gear02 · 07-07-2008, 01:13 AM

This is why I don't trust paypal worth a damn. They really don't have any due process.

chrissy · 07-07-2008, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Now, I know, I know. I shouldn't have had it attached to my bank account. Please don't lecture me. You can't say anything I haven't said to myself while I kicked my own ass. I've had the account for 7 years and never had a single iota of a problem, the whole time having had it attached to my acct. So... I know it was stupid, but I don't need/want to hear it from anyone here.

I have already told you about this....

And I told you I will have a drink once my parents leave.

Winston · 07-08-2008, 06:43 AM

so what is the safest/best way to fund a pay pal acct?

gwilks98 · 07-08-2008, 07:29 AM

You might want to reformat your machine. There's no telling how they got a hold of your account, and that includes malware/virus activity.

Prngr44 · 07-08-2008, 08:38 AM

Do they even let you NOT have it linked to a checking account?

Prngr44 · 07-08-2008, 08:41 AM

Heh. On their website:

"100% protection from unauthorized payments."

We know that one's false.

mcs328 · 07-08-2008, 09:35 AM

Thanks. I totally forgot mine was linked to my bank account since I hardly use it. I removed it but I linked it to a cc. Just as bad?

Jenny · 07-08-2008, 11:18 AM

mcs, I think if it is linked to a cc and not a debit card, you should be ok. But don't take my word for it.

Yeah, Prngr44 (& I STILL call you porn girl everytime I see your nick. *laugh*), I'm using our other computer right now and the desktop I was on got wiped down and reformatted and then wiped down again since something I must have done after the reformat caused an infection as well. lol Don't ask em what. *sigh* Anyway, all our other pw's have been changed now as well, so hopefully this will be the end of it.

Daedalus · 07-08-2008, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcs328

Thanks. I totally forgot mine was linked to my bank account since I hardly use it.

+1 Warning heeded. As soon as my funds transfer out of Paypal is complete I'm going to delete the link to my checking.

Thanks for posting your experience.

Jenny · 07-08-2008, 04:00 PM

Well, I'm glad something good can come out of it.

heh

Jeffbx · 07-09-2008, 05:13 AM

Well, this prompted me to finally activate the security key I bought from them a while ago. This might be a good idea to anyone who has their paypal account tied to their bank account. So even if someone manages to get a hold of your password, they still won't be able to log in unless they have this security key as well. Costs $5, which is pretty darn cheap for one of these - we bought them for my company for about $40-50 each.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/we...ityKey-outside

You can use it for your ebay account, too.

guiseppewv · 07-09-2008, 05:42 AM

That is a VPN (Virtual Private Network) token. They aren't unhackable but they are pretty damn secure. Much more so than a password alone.

BTW - this is one of the reasons I despise PP and I refuse to have an account with them. Their 100% guarantee is not worth the bits used to display it.

DarkFury · 07-09-2008, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guiseppewv

BTW - this is one of the reasons I despise PP and I refuse to have an account with them. Their 100% guarantee is not worth the bits used to display it.

I understand where you are coming from, however I have a differing opinion of them.

I look at PayPal as a facilitator to buyers/sellers who don't have the ability to have their own credit card merchant accounts. I like buying stuff over the internet, yet in doing so with "individuals" there is always a "risk" involved. PayPal for all of its faults still is a partial mitigation of that risk.

If used wisely, PayPal is a valuable web tool. However any tool can be dangerous in the wrong hands. This is why my credit card serves as my "backup tool" just for when stupid stuff happens.

Thesifer · 07-09-2008, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffbx

Well, this prompted me to finally activate the security key I bought from them a while ago. This might be a good idea to anyone who has their paypal account tied to their bank account. So even if someone manages to get a hold of your password, they still won't be able to log in unless they have this security key as well. Costs $5, which is pretty darn cheap for one of these - we bought them for my company for about $40-50 each.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/we...ityKey-outside

You can use it for your ebay account, too.

wow, you weren't using it and you've had it for a while? I've had one of these FOREVER. wouldn't use paypal without it. But it was free since I have a "business paypal" account

Jenny · 07-15-2008, 01:05 PM

Got the paperwork from our bank (Bank of America) Saturday and got it faxed back to them last night. Scott called just now to make sure they had gotten it and they had. They also said that they had just been waiting on the paperwork, and that they had already ruled in our favor and we would be getting the $1600 back within the next 10 days. w00t. Can't stop shaking. Paypal can kiss my ass. lol

Daedalus · 07-15-2008, 01:23 PM

That's great to hear. Congrats!
My Paypal account is now an orphan with $0 in it.

Prngr44 · 07-15-2008, 01:39 PM

My account also has $0 and I de-linked it from my checking as well.

Jenny · 07-15-2008, 01:44 PM

heh I closed mine and am never going back.

yippiekiyeh · 07-15-2008, 10:55 PM

Thanks for the cautionary tale, I've gone ahead and unlinked my main account, and am using an ing account that has very little money in it, $4 last I checked hehe.

guiseppewv · 07-16-2008, 07:21 AM

eff Paypal

I don't like them and I probably never will

DarkFury · 07-16-2008, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yippiekiyeh

Thanks for the cautionary tale, I've gone ahead and unlinked my main account, and am using an ing account that has very little money in it, $4 last I checked hehe.

That's how I have mine set up as well... I don't link to my main checking account.

07-07-2008, 12:45 AM	#1
Jenny Chief of Naval Operations Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Kansas City area Posts: 10,946	SS: Paypal & Gmail hacked - $1600 stolen Ugh. So about the same time that Scott was getting his new job, we found out that someone had hacked into my Paypal account and withdrawn $1600 from my bank account and sent it to someone in what turns out to be Norway. It was $1000 converted into euros, which was about $1600. There was also an $18 payment the same way to Skype... We're assuming they either tried that first to see if it would work or just wanted to do Skype. Now, I know, I know. I shouldn't have had it attached to my bank account. Please don't lecture me. You can't say anything I haven't said to myself while I kicked my own ass. I've had the account for 7 years and never had a single iota of a problem, the whole time having had it attached to my acct. So... I know it was stupid, but I don't need/want to hear it from anyone here. So anyway, I called Paypal immediately when I saw the transactions, filed a fraud claim or whatever. They said something about putting the money back into the bank account temporarily while they did their investigation but they didn't expect to find any problems. Sure enough, that night, $1600 was in my bank account. Great. Took us back from $1100 negative balance to the $500 or so we had in there before. (The bank had agreed to waive any overdraft fees until the 7th or before whenever it was cleared up.) Later that day (or maybe next day?), I got an email from Paypal saying they had not found sufficient evidence showing that we had not made the charges so they were denying my claims. I was horrified. A) In the 7 years I've been with them, none of my charges has been over like $100. not even sure they have been that much! and B) why the hell would I do that when it caused me to go $1100 in the hole in my bank account? Ok, so after fretting some, Scott called Paypal back himself. Said, what can we do to show some proof that we didn't do this? (Oh, and in the meantime, we figured out from the subject line of the Paypal that it was for some WoW character! We have never played WoW, let alone have WoW installed here!) They said they would put it back through the process to see if they missed anything. Knowing that they won't find anything they didn't find before and knowing that there is no way they will get their money back so they CERTAINLY aren't going to just believe us and give us our money back, Scott decided to go in to the bank on Saturday morning. So anyway, they are sending us some paperwork (affidavits & whatnot) to sign and bring (or send? I dunno) in and we'll go from there. Honestly, we're not getting our hopes up about getting it back from them either. We've prepared ourselves in using this as a hard lesson learned. In the meantime, Scott's parents were gracious enough to loan us $1200 to help pay the bills, since we aren't sure when the paychecks will start coming in from his new job (yay!), so we'll gradually pay them back from his paychecks. I of course immediately changed my Paypal account pw & security question (they actually locked it until I did). But... Scott had me check my gmail boxes just out of curiosity that night too (when he talked to Paypal) and lo and behold, there was an email from Blizzard in my trash about changing the WoW account from j****** (??? no idea why that was all starred out, I'm just assuming it was my email address) to some other one with a .ai end or something. So apparently they hacked into my gmail account and from there got into my Paypal acct. (I don't think the pw's were the same, but I may be mistaken. It wasn't a word you could find in the dictionary, but it was one that might have been able to be broken, I guess. ) So anyway, the Paypal & gmail pw's are both now different than they were and different from each other as well and now they are much more secure. We plan on waiting to hear from Paypal about the investigation and then regardless of how they find, I'm closing the account and saying FU. So... There it is. All the ups and downs of the job thing, my computer having major issues (reformatting took about 15 tries, the first 14 getting BSOD toward the beginning of the job), and now the money thing. Plus, Scott has a bad cold and I think I caught it because my throat is beginning to hurt. Ugh. I wish I liked alcohol. I need a hug. sigh lol __________________ Check out my spoilers for over 20 shows @ SpoilerFix.com Check out my TV blog, where I post weekly & daily TV schedules, TV news, interviews with TV stars & more! All new TV forums as well @ TV Is My Pacifier

07-07-2008, 01:13 AM	#3
gear02 Admiral Join Date: Apr 2000 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 7,178	This is why I don't trust paypal worth a damn. They really don't have any due process. __________________

07-08-2008, 06:43 AM	#5
Winston Ensign Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 29	so what is the safest/best way to fund a pay pal acct? __________________ ........__o ....._ \<,_ ....(_)/ (_)

07-08-2008, 07:29 AM	#6
gwilks98 Rear Admiral Upper Half Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: StL Posts: 3,941	You might want to reformat your machine. There's no telling how they got a hold of your account, and that includes malware/virus activity. __________________ "I know the pieces fit, cause I watched them fall away." "Cold silence has A tendancy to Atrophy any Sense of compassion." MJK

07-08-2008, 08:38 AM	#7
Prngr44 Captain Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: St. Louis Posts: 1,991	Do they even let you NOT have it linked to a checking account? __________________ http://otthouse.blogspot.com

07-07-2008, 12:50 AM	#2
Jenny Chief of Naval Operations Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Kansas City area Posts: 10,946	Oh, and we emailed the guy just out of curiosity that was sent the money from the paypal transaction. He emailed back saying don't try and scam me, etc etc. He & Scott emailed back & forth a couple of times and if he is the thief, he's a damn good liar. Maybe we are just naive, but it seems like he sold his WoW character because of needing money for some family health issues and whoever scammed us bought it using our money. Don't know if that is true or not, but since he didn't just ignore our email, we're thinking maybe it is.

07-08-2008, 08:41 AM	#8
Prngr44 Captain Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: St. Louis Posts: 1,991	Heh. On their website: "100% protection from unauthorized payments." We know that one's false.

07-08-2008, 09:35 AM	#9
mcs328 Admiral Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Maryland Posts: 5,925	Thanks. I totally forgot mine was linked to my bank account since I hardly use it. I removed it but I linked it to a cc. Just as bad? __________________

07-08-2008, 11:18 AM	#10
Jenny Chief of Naval Operations Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Kansas City area Posts: 10,946	mcs, I think if it is linked to a cc and not a debit card, you should be ok. But don't take my word for it. Yeah, Prngr44 (& I STILL call you porn girl everytime I see your nick. laugh), I'm using our other computer right now and the desktop I was on got wiped down and reformatted and then wiped down again since something I must have done after the reformat caused an infection as well. lol Don't ask em what. sigh Anyway, all our other pw's have been changed now as well, so hopefully this will be the end of it.

07-08-2008, 04:00 PM	#12
Jenny Chief of Naval Operations Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Kansas City area Posts: 10,946	Well, I'm glad something good can come out of it. heh

07-09-2008, 05:13 AM	#13
Jeffbx Fleet Admiral Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Michigan Posts: 8,542	Well, this prompted me to finally activate the security key I bought from them a while ago. This might be a good idea to anyone who has their paypal account tied to their bank account. So even if someone manages to get a hold of your password, they still won't be able to log in unless they have this security key as well. Costs $5, which is pretty darn cheap for one of these - we bought them for my company for about $40-50 each. https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/we...ityKey-outside You can use it for your ebay account, too.

07-09-2008, 05:42 AM	#14
guiseppewv Admiral Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: East coast Posts: 5,941	That is a VPN (Virtual Private Network) token. They aren't unhackable but they are pretty damn secure. Much more so than a password alone. BTW - this is one of the reasons I despise PP and I refuse to have an account with them. Their 100% guarantee is not worth the bits used to display it. Last edited by guiseppewv : 07-09-2008 at 07:20 AM.

07-15-2008, 01:05 PM	#17
Jenny Chief of Naval Operations Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Kansas City area Posts: 10,946	Got the paperwork from our bank (Bank of America) Saturday and got it faxed back to them last night. Scott called just now to make sure they had gotten it and they had. They also said that they had just been waiting on the paperwork, and that they had already ruled in our favor and we would be getting the $1600 back within the next 10 days. w00t. Can't stop shaking. Paypal can kiss my ass. lol

07-15-2008, 01:23 PM	#18
Daedalus Lieutenant Commander Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 586	That's great to hear. Congrats! My Paypal account is now an orphan with $0 in it.

07-15-2008, 01:39 PM	#19
Prngr44 Captain Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: St. Louis Posts: 1,991	My account also has $0 and I de-linked it from my checking as well.

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07-15-2008, 01:44 PM	#20
Jenny Chief of Naval Operations Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Kansas City area Posts: 10,946	heh I closed mine and am never going back.

07-15-2008, 10:55 PM	#21
yippiekiyeh A Friend of a Friend Join Date: May 2001 Location: WESTSIDE! Posts: 1,664	Thanks for the cautionary tale, I've gone ahead and unlinked my main account, and am using an ing account that has very little money in it, $4 last I checked hehe. __________________ Distributed.Net I'm Trying this blogger thang... Last edited by yippiekiyeh : 07-15-2008 at 10:58 PM.

07-16-2008, 07:21 AM	#22
guiseppewv Admiral Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: East coast Posts: 5,941	eff Paypal I don't like them and I probably never will