I recently had a very disappointing incident regarding PayPal. I have chosen to use my PayPal account where I was able, because I assumed it would be more secure, as I would not have to give out my credit card information to other people. Mostly, I have used PayPal to purchase software online.
Anyway, two days ago, I checked my e-mail after arriving home from work and found six message from PayPal saying I’d authorized $400 in total sales in six separate transactions with two companies I’d never heard of. Instantly alarmed, I called PayPal’s customer service line. I expected to get immediate assistance and assurance that I was not responsible for these payments as I had not, in fact, authorized them. Instead, I got the feeling the customer service representative I talked with could not have cared less about my problem. Her solution was to give me the phone numbers of the two companies involved so I could call them and see if they’d refund my money! What! If that didn’t work, I could wait 19 days and file disputes for each of the transactions. There must be something else that can be done, I said. Nope. That’s it.
So I got the phone numbers from her, called the two companies who had taken money from me and — here’s a shock! — was not able to actually talk to a living person. The first company, something called Zynga Game Network, automatically directed me to there customer service line, where a robot voice informed me I could not leave a message as the voice mailbox was full. The other company, Spare Change, did allow me the honor of leaving a message, for which I was assured I would receive a response — 48 hours later, nothing. I then went to my PayPal account where I filed a dispute for each of the six transactions, and change my password and security questions.
I was a long way from satisfied, so I called my credit card company, got the fraud division, told my story and received satisfaction. The agent said I would not be responsible for those six transactions, that they would not pay them out. He canceled my card number and is sending me a new card.
So, I guess this is a somewhat happy ending. However, I will never trust PayPal again. You would think they’d have measures in place to guard against this type of theft. I mean, any rational person could see from scanning these transactions that they had to be a ripoff. One was for $150, and each of the other five was for $50.
I’m canceling my PayPal account A.S.A.P.
