Calm down. PayPal didn't steal your money. An a$$hole who got your PayPal information might have. Contact your bank, too. Something similar happened to me a couple of years ago. Online, does your bank information state that the money has already been sent, or is it pending? If it's pending, the bank may be able to stop the transaction from occurring. If it has already been sent, you will most likely still get your money back, but you will have to wait.

I truly feel for you. I am not one who has lots of money and can afford to miss my money for a little while (my occurrence was over $500 as well). In my situation, the bank said that they could try to "catch" the money when the transfer was scheduled to take place, but thankfully the transfer was cancelled. I'll never know why. I'm just thankful. I really didn't want the skater's clothing that was purchased with it, LOL.

When this is all over, you will want to close that bank account and open another. And when you do, don't forget to take care of any automatic payments that came out of it.

WOW,
I just started using Paypal and selling on Ebay. Could you please let us know how this turns out?
Donna

Every time I've used Paypal, I've gotten an email almost instantly with all the information provided and a transaction #. Check your email for that date or around it. (Although it doesn't sound likely you'd have overlooked an email saying PP has deducted...)

Notify your bank immediately. And if it were me, I also be contacting the place that sold/shipped the merchandise and the International USPS.

My bank accounts are not listed with PP. Only info they have is my CC#. Nobody gets access to my bank account #.

Good luck with this. Hopefully you can nip it in the bud, but it's likely to be a mess.

Like Donna said, paypal did not steal your money. Someone else did or it "could' even be an error/mistake. You should get your money back.

I would actually suggest you contact the police. If this is an overseas scam, it needs to be stopped, and they may be able to tell you how or to who to report it. I would bet paypal is on top of it though; but you never know.

Close out all the included bank accounts, etc., change your paypal password and any password associated with the sites that may be included (ebay?), etc.. and check your credit report now, and regularly.

Call your bank immediately....get the fraud number from their website and call now..tell then that the withdraw from PayPal is unauthorized.

You may want to get a letter from your bank, so you can send a copy to any creditors that you are needing to pay this week. They may give you a break, and forgo any late charges should you have to pay for being late.
Maybe the bank will even help you with a fast loan until the money is recovered to help you out.
Good luck, I am sure it will turn out fine. This happens a lot now a days.

Trin

Until Carla mentioned it, I forgot to say that I also filed a police report. Cover all the bases.

Were you able to get into your Paypal account? If so, you need to change your password ASAP.. I'm assuming though since you didn't get any emails when the transaction occured that someone has already changed them.

Hope this all works out for you.

I had money taken by PayPal every few days over a two week period. It ended up being close to $1000. at the time paypal couldn't recover it. The banks option for me was to close my account and change my information on PayPal. They could not even tell me where the money was transferred to. I now have a new fraud investigation going on since money was transferred via Western Union on my bank account in the same manner. Nothing is safe these days.

This exactly why I have an account just for ebay. There is never much in it unless I am planning on using it. They can try all they want but they can't get anything.

DS who is very experienced wih Pay Pal and Ebay said

Tell the person to change her password anyway and make sure she gets an email back from paypal..

I would never have it debit my bank account. Always go through a credit card so you can challenge it, but for your situation did you go in and see about cancelling it? Every time I made a PayPal payment it gave the option to cancel it. Maybe this is simpler than you think. But yes, contact the police.

My bank accidently took about 20,000 out of my checking acct for a wire transfer...There was not 20,000 in the acct and I did no such thing. They made a mistake and corrected everything, including bounce check fees. I did demand a letter in writing explaining and documenting their mix up in case something should arise....

I agree, NEVER use your bank account/debit card for anything on-line, it's like using cash and harder to get things reversed. ALWAYS us a regular credit card, you have more protection and can get charges reversed/canceled much easier.

When I opened my account - and this may have chenged in the many years since then - you HAD to have a bank account and they verified who you were by putting a few pennies into the account and you would then report a day or two later how much that amount was. I never use my account for paying...I use a credit card. The problem with changing my bank account is that I have several automatic withdrawals each month - two of which are mortgages which ask for at least 30 days notice of any account change - and I am even at a loss for things like account numbers on some "paperless" monthly charges, like Comcast. I have been to the bank (actually, credit union) to fill out fraud papers and have spoken to both EBAY and Paypal. EBAY has no record of this "win" and someone WAS able to change my password for both my Ebay and PayPal accts. NO I have not responded to any phishing emails and I do have antivirus software installed.

Just a thought for anyone else with online security.

Never, ever use your kids' or your pet's names as passwords. If these are listed on Facebook or any other place, it's a no brainer for someone to try hacking paypal or other security you might have using these names as passwords.

Unfortunately, they are the most commonly used passwords :(

I sure hope you get this straighted out!! and fast... that is scary.