I thought PayPal was supposed to be the most secure service in the whole entire world. I switched to pay my Netflix through PayPal after I had my debit card number stolen again. That's all I really use it for, besides the occasional eBay purchase. So imagine my surprise when I came home from work yesterday and checked my email on my phone and saw that apparently I had sent around $2,500 in donations overseas to someone going by the name "Rick Ross" while I was at work. The subject for all of my donations..."wheezy". Really? REALLY?!
PayPal had emailed me after the 4th "donation" had been made to tell me they had limited my account and I needed to change my password and gave instructions on how to dispute any transactions. So I pulled up my laptop to take care of all of this, and of course my internet was out! So you better believe I ran back to my car and drove 100 mph back to the school so I could use a computer. I got everything changed and reported all the transactions.
Now it's a waiting game. The 5 "donations" I did not authorize are pending out of my checking account...so yeah, someone who gets paid once a month got more than her monthly paycheck taken out of her checking account balance today. Yay me. PayPal has temporarily credited my PayPal account for 3 of the 5 transactions. I am waiting to see if they credit me for the other two. "Rick Ross" apparently refunded me for one of the $655 "donations" he stole, but that's only showing up on PayPal at this time and not my checking account. He apparently has 7 days to prove those donations were valid. The investigation PayPal is doing can take up to 10 business days. My account may not be fully refunded for up to 30 days. My bank said just to let PayPal handle it. I. HATE. WAITING. Especially when thousands of my dollars are involved.
It also pisses me off that someone has nothing better to do than steal money from people who work hard to earn it! It's not easy being a teacher.
Oh, and a google search revealed that the real Rick Ross is a rapper with a charity. But that charity is in the United States, NOT overseas. And when I went to his website, there was no PayPal button. And I doubt an official website would use Hotmail. Who actually uses Hotmail anymore??? I'll tell ya who...thieves.
Dennis uses hotmail...maybe I should reconsider our marriage. LOL! Oh my word, I would be just tearing my hear out over this. We've been through similar situations and it always drives me crazy. Thieves...arg! Also, now I'm paranoid about using PayPal. I guess nothing is completely secure. I just need to make sure we have enough in savings to cover us if something like this happenes. I hope you'll be OK!!!
ReplyDeleteLol, maybe I'll amend my statement to say that thieves and people over 40 are the only ones who still use hotmail. You should stay married. ;) I have money in savings and will get paid soon, so this is really just a headache of waiting to see that all my money is returned to me. It was painful to see that bank account balance drop so drastically, and not having anything fun to show for it!
DeleteGlad you had some savings, I know I would feel the same way waiting for it to get resolved. I remember feeling so violated. Seriously, people, get a job and earn your own money! sheesh
ReplyDelete