PayPal danger - PLEASE READ

Jordec

PayPal says the merchant set up an ‘automatic payment’. That is why PayPal took the money that the merchant requested. Because of this, they say the payments were ‘authorised’. We’ve asked for proof of this and they’ve refused to send it. (I got supposed proof of my automatic payments and I hadn’t approved anything at all, hence reporting them). The whole process of the dispute was dealt with in a few hours. The appeal took hours too. Two long phone calls and then the next day, both resulted in closing the case. We aren’t the only ones affected. The company tricked PayPal and was obviously aware of how easy it was to set this payment method up. If PayPal had checked with us, which they are supposed to do, we would have prevented this.

I’m just trying to make people aware. I’m amazed I’ve actually found 2 people with no ‘automatic’ payments. 

Jordec

booneruk said:

There's a lot to digest there. I think I'll let others break it down, but the question I have would be who is the merchant that requested the payments? (Paypal wouldn't be the recipients of the money, surely?)

Jordec said:

 We raised a dispute for Unauthorised payments and they found in favour of the seller. We appealed and still they dismissed it. We called (the call was recorded) and the girl said that they knew it was fraud, the company they’d paid was fake. She said we’d be refunded, but then they closed the case again, in favour of the seller! The bank had stopped the card immediately and raised a fraud case, so we at least were reassured that no more could be taken. This was on the evening of Friday 29th August. 

That's a lot going on in such a small amount of time. I doubt the full dispute process would have been completely exhausted after only a couple of days though. Have you still been onto them?

The BBC article I think you mention: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6y42jggdyo
Your (I assume) reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/paypal/comments/1n8940s/paypal_taking_money_without_authorisation/

EDIT - if the mechanism used is Direct Debit, isn't there a guarantee that can have them reversed?

Sorry Booner, just saw your edit at the bottom. The account was cleaned out using the card on PayPal. That emptied the account, so 5 days later, even though by this time PayPal was aware it was fraud, they reverted to the Direct Debit set up for Apple. You are correct, that was reversed by the bank within hours.

Barkin

Jordec said:

 I’m amazed I’ve actually found 2 people with no ‘automatic’ payments. 

Make that 3

Jordec

Great, you are obviously all very savvy. Looking at your other replies, I can see you don’t need any advice, so I’ll gladly edit the post to simply raise awareness.

GingerTim

Barkin said:

Jordec said:

 I’m amazed I’ve actually found 2 people with no ‘automatic’ payments. 

Make that 3

Up to 4 now.

Yorkie1

If you make a statement that something will be the case for every single user, and some people make a check and find that it does not apply to them, that is hardly hostility to you if they contradict you.

I will check my own PP account as a result of your post, just in case, so thank you.

But to flounce off in a temper tantrum is a little OTT as a response from you.

QrizB

GingerTim said:

Barkin said:

Jordec said:

 I’m amazed I’ve actually found 2 people with no ‘automatic’ payments. 

Make that 3

Up to 4 now.

Five.

I've checked and I only have the expected automatic payments, no new or unexpected ones at all.

Jordec

I’ve asked the admin to delete.

booneruk

Jordec said:

I don’t believe for one minute that all 4 of you have no automatic payments. 

I have automatic payments, and have done for years - it's how I subscribe to services that I want the ultimate control over cancelling quickly (newspaper subs etc). I just have nothing unexpected there - and I think that's what everyone else is saying

QrizB

Jordec said:

I’ve asked the admin to delete.

OP I'm sure your warning was posted in good faith; it's just that the problem doesn't seem to be as widespread as you initially thought.