PayPal dispute

milesR

Does anyone know how to speak to someone at PayPal? 
On Friday my EBay account was hacked and someone purchased an item for £1300 using my linked PayPal account. The money was taken from my debit card. I realised fairly quickly and contacted EBay by phone who agreed it was hacked and sorted out my account. They emailed the seller and asked him not to send item and issue refund. He then emailed me on Saturday asking why I had changed my mind. I explained that it was not me and he then agreed to refund as he had not sent the item. He also sent me the address that the hacker had emailed him to change the postal address. This address is not one I recognise.
I contacted my Bank who cancelled my debit card.
All good so far. I raised a dispute with PayPal as I could not get through to customer services. I put unauthorised transaction as my reason for dispute. This was on Friday evening. On Saturday morning I awoke to an email finding against me and closing the dispute as they said it was not an unauthorised transaction. 
I have tried using their message center which keeps saying an agent will reply within 1 hour. When you phone it just says their is no agent available and hangs up on you. I have emailed under their complaints section but heard nothing.
Any Ideas?

soolin

Just to clarify, has seller refunded your money ? I am a bit confused as to why seller apparently refunded you and yet a PayPal dispute was opened, if PayPal could see a refund had been imitated (and it can take 5-7 days to go back to your bank) then any PayPal dispute would fail automatically. What exactly does it show in your PayPal account by the transaction?  Also on eBay can you still see the transaction or not?

if after a week you don’t see the refund in your bank then raise a complaint again , you may have to do it via your bank as this was a linked bank account so bank might need to get involved. 

No doubt you have sorted out your security but it might be wise to try and work out how this happened to see what went wrong, whether you have fallen for a phishing email, or have someone close by who has access to your accounts. The hacker obviously has your eBay details , but if you didn’t get an email from either eBay or PayPal advising you as to the purchase then they have your email details as well, and that could indicate someone close to you. 

The only thing I’m not sure about and hopefully someone else can help with is whether the transfer back to your bank will fail if you have cancelled your debit card. 

milesR

I raised a dispute before I managed to speak to Ebay and the seller. The transaction does not show on ebay. The hacker had changed my email with eBay. I changed it back hence why I got an email from the seller. The hacker had control for about 3 hours. 

milesR

If I click on the transaction on the summary page it says there is an open dispute. When I go to the resolution centre it says case closed transaction not covered 

soolin

milesR said:

I raised a dispute before I managed to speak to Ebay and the seller. The transaction does not show on ebay. The hacker had changed my email with eBay. I changed it back hence why I got an email from the seller. The hacker had control for about 3 hours. 

Ok well the one thing that shows is that hacker also has your email log in as otherwise you would have seen an email from eBay saying that your email had been changed and to confirm the details. It is usual for a hacker to hack an email as well to stop the real user from seeing the eBay emails.  

If you can’t get hold of PayPal by phone then you might need to wait until tomorrow and talk to your bank to see if they can see a pending credit back to your account, tomorrow might be a bit soon but it won’t hurt to try. As above, I’m not sure if that is affected by cancelling your debit card. 

shaun_from_Africa

As the hacker appears to have had both your eBay and Paypal passwords as well as you email log in details, there is a good possibility that they may have hacked into your computer to obtain these.
It would be very prudent to change all of your financial and social account log in details (using another computer) then run a good anti virus scan and malware scan on your main computer. 

milesR

It was the email about the change to my email from èbay that alerted me to this. The hacker only got into EBay not my email or my paypal. Hence why he purchased an expensive item.

shaun_from_Africa

milesR said:

It was the email about the change to my email from èbay that alerted me to this. The hacker only got into EBay not my email or my paypal. Hence why he purchased an expensive item.

I've not bought anything via ebay for quite a while but surely if paying with paypal, you have to log in to your account before a payment can be authorised.

soolin

shaun_from_Africa said:

milesR said:

It was the email about the change to my email from èbay that alerted me to this. The hacker only got into EBay not my email or my paypal. Hence why he purchased an expensive item.

I've not bought anything via ebay for quite a while but surely if paying with paypal, you have to log in to your account before a payment can be authorised.

You can set it up so that authorisation isn’t required, you just buy something, click by PayPal and pay. Obviously it is designed on the basis that people understand that it makes keeping your eBay secure even more important. Mine is set up like that for eBay, but I have not enabled PayPal generally to be automatic on any other site. 

milesR

My bank have refunded the money. Still no reply from PayPal. Thanks for the advice. 

sassy_one

milesR said:

My bank have refunded the money. Still no reply from PayPal. Thanks for the advice. 

What reply are you expecting, you've been refunded.