£1995 Can Paypal affect my credit rating

EddardStark

Hi Guys,

So here goes. Somebody accessed my paypal account and used multiple transactions to make payments to a company called "paytech international". I think it was somebody I know who guessed my password but I cannot prove it.
I did some research and found out that the company is a trading name for party poker. I contacted them but they are absolutely useless and wont speak to me as I have no user details.
I made an unauthorised payment claim with Paypal.
They denied my claim as my password was used to make the payment. I did some research online and I think the person would have used the money and 'Lost' it to themselves over a poker table.
I am now £-1995 with paypal and they keep calling and emailing me to resolve the negative balance? They have said it May be passed to a collections agency.

What are my options?

Can they affect my credit rating as I want to buy a house in 2 years.

Can they enforce the debt.

I signed up to paypal using all my real details, address etc.

fermi

For just a normal consumer paypal account they do not report any account or debt information to the CRAs.

To enforce the debt or affect your credit reports they would have to take you to court for the money and win, and then you not pay it within one month of any judgement date.

EddardStark

When I noticed the receipts for the payments in my emails I cancelled the direct debit from my bank account as it usually takes a few days for them to take the money. So the request for the funds had been denied but PayPal had already paid it. I've spent hours on the phone to them but they just don't listen or care.

Are they likely to take me to court?

takman

The first thing you need to do is to make sure you change your passwords on any other sites that you use the same one!. Any password that can be guessed by someone is definitely not one that you should be using at all nevermind for financial websites!.
You should choose a password that contains letters and numbers and symbols and doesn't have any word or names in it.

PayPal also offer two factor authentication so that is something that everyone should have enabled!.

EddardStark

I have changed all my passwords but it still the case that paypal have rejected this claim. I don't mind it going to a collections agency at this point as long as it does not affect my credit fil.

Once it does get passed to a DCA i suppose that's another battle I will have to face. Is there anyway they can record on my credit file, and would it be easy to make them go away?

National_Debtline

Hi Eddard


I am not aware of any terms in Paypal's user agreements allowing them to report account data to the credit reference agencies. Any DCA involved would be no more entitled to report such data than Paypal themselves. The "debt" might be getting chased by a different name, but its fundamental nature would not change, and as Fermi said further above it would have to become the subject of a county court judgment in order to adversely affect your credit file.


Dennis
@natdebtline

soolin

The scenario is different but the end result is the same in this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5455702

I am not aware that paypal have ever taken anyone to court- so without a day in court this cannot affect your credit rating. However, they will chase you for the debt and can be persistent and border on aggressive once debt collectors get involved, so get proper advice about what a collector can and can't do.

Also of course this means that if you walk away from this debt that is it as far as paypal and ebay go, you cannot risk ever opening another paypal account and even associated family accounts might be endangered.

soolin

adindas wrote: »

I might be wrong, but my understanding is that, there is no way you could get negative balance on your PP account.

If your balance is not enough they will take it from your link account or your credit card registered on PP.

Want to hear comment from other people. Could people get negative balance on PP ??

For the op Do you really get Negative balance on your PP account or in your current account / CC ??

It is very possible to get a negative balance on a paypal account

soolin

adindas wrote: »

Apart from what OP has explained, e.g within the windows before they collect it from your bank ac/cc and you cancel the DD from your account.

Is there any other possibility ??

Paypal seem to allow a negative balance on an account that is used regularly - I have had a theoretical negative balance myself. Mine arose as I had cleared my paypal account before a holiday and a buyer had opened an INR , so paypal put a hold on the money for that claim which gave me a negative balance.

A couple of days later I refunded the payment which was paid back to the buyer as an echeque due to insufficient funds- but paypal made no attempt to claim the balance from my associated bank or cards. A week or so later when I was back from holiday and started selling again the first payment I received just went to clear the negative balance and I carried on as normal- paypal sent no emails, made no threats and basically just left it to me to clear. I am a regular user, it is unusual for me to go too long without receiving funds so perhaps they just knew it would be paid back.

Thrugelmir

soolin wrote: »

Paypal seem to allow a negative balance on an account that is used regularly - I have had a theoretical negative balance myself. Mine arose as I had cleared my paypal account before a holiday and a buyer had opened an INR , so paypal put a hold on the money for that claim which gave me a negative balance.

That's a different scenario to Paypal allowing an account holder to make a payment without access to cleared funds. Either through a credit card or transferring money across. Via a bank card it takes 5-7 days. Never use this method anymore.

Just transferred a £1 and this is the message.

These funds will become available in your PayPal account when the electronic funds transfer is complete. This process takes 5-7 working days to complete.

So no change.

There were cleared funds to allow the withdrawl.

Westie983

This happened to me a few years ago.

What happened was I got $500 paid into my Paypal account by the fraudster, was then transferred to Betfair limited, but then they did a recall of the payment saying it was fraudulent and the money was taken back from my account and left me with a - figure.

I had last used the account in the August when I was working abroad and I paid for some items bought via eBay, I wasn't aware of the negative balance till I got a letter from a debt collector in the following January after I returned from working abroad saying I owed money to Paypal.

No emails or contact from them, although they were adamant they had sent numerous emails to me.

I think my account was hacked when I didn't log out of my paypal account after paying for my item as I was on the hotel computer and it just shut down when I ran out of credit, I can only assume that the next person had access to my account.

I wrote to the debt collector (Robinson Way) explaining that I don't acknowledge the debt and they went back to Paypal, I finally wrote an email to Paypal explaining that the debt had nothing to do with me and I was not paying for it. If they looked at my account history I never used gambling websites and never used foreign currency. I asked them to send me the copies of the emails they had sent me telling me of the debt, within 7 days and if they didn't correct my credit file and call of the debt collector I would seek my own legal action.

My Paypal account was cleared and closed down, I was surprised that the original payment could be withdrawn.

Its similar to the advance payment scam that you hear about, noticeably involving cold call and Microsoft....