Ok – just got an email from paypal confirming my payment to someone for £633. I assumed it was a scam so logged into my account directly (not by clicking on the link in the email) and the payment has gone through and will shortly come out of my bank account.

I have no idea who the payment is to and have therefore opened up a dispute.

Has this happened to anyone one else? The main problem I foresee is that pretty often I send money as gift etc… to random email addresses for things I buy off here so if they look at my paypal usage it may look like I am trying to pull a fast one.

Any help/comments would be much appreciated.

Ouch, tell us more!

That happened to a mate of mine, he had his pc compromised. He did get his money back from pay pal but he had a bookies account, which they were putting bets on with his winnings.

I don't really know too much more at the moment apart from the op above, apparently paypal will respond within 10 days as to whether I will get a refund etc…

Naively I assumed paypal was pretty safe…

THought you could recall payments up to a certain point?

Not saying Paypal is totally secure but it's more likely your own PC is compromised than their systems…

Naively I assumed paypal was pretty safe…

Like most online banking it is only as safe as your password.

I had a similar problem. Pay Pal phoned me to confirm whether a transaction they had was genuine or not I said it was not. 3o mins later the money was withdrawn from my account £800. They said they would investigate it which consisted of emailing the 'seller' and asking them if it was genuine, off coarse they said yes so Pay Pal took their word over mine!. Because the money was taken from my account via Direct Debit I phoned my Bank who immediately refunded me the money. They then took it up with Pay Pal. Then Pay Pal claimed that I had never paid the £800 and tried to take it from by bank again, luckily I had stopped my direct debit. I was able to track my account with Pay Pal on line and again I had been lucky enough to have screen shots of all my transaction showing that the money had come from my account. Then Pay Pal modified my account transactions online and deleted the payment from the bank (somewhat illegal I think) It was a nightmare dealing with them the still insisted that the original transaction was genuine and that I still owed them the £800. They then made it so difficult to communicate with them insisting that everything was done in writing. I got nowhere. I gave up in the end very annoyed not out of pocket thanks to my bank but I will never use Pay Pal again

The most common way this happens is because people use the same email address and password for everything they sign up to. There are people who set up websites (or hack legit ones) for the purpose of getting this information and then go straight to PP to see if it works…

they never matched the heights of the weatherall-produced screamadelica.

so chances of never seeing the £633 again…?!

sounds like the bank might refund me if paypal don't?