My paypal account was hacked!!!!

You got away (relatively) lightly this time. It could have been a $2500 computer (or worse).

The entire Westlife back catalogue for example

Yikes. Hope you get a full refund and the culprits are identified/prosecuted.

Presumably the email didn't address you by name (i.e. it began with Dear Customer, or something similar)?

It's not difficult for these sorts of emails to address you by name - I get loads addressed "Dear My Name" asking for my banking details to confirm things - the fact that I don't have a bank account from the sender of course gives me a slight clue it may be a "phish".

Key for these things is, never follow a link from an email (type the site's address direct or do a Google search) and certainly never enter in critical personal details to anyone without phoning and checking the request is genuine. You'll find 99% of the time they're probably not.

I can't remember really the heading of the email but page look exactly the same as the original from paypal. The culprit's name and full address(confirmed) was on my paypal transaction. I have also emailed the ebay.com seller to stop the transaction and freeze the payment until paypal resolves the case.

I hope pay-pal sort it Iceman,i was sent an email asking me to update my details a few weeks back.contacted pay-pal and they said they are aware of the scam mails being sent out....good luck mate.

My understanding is banks will not refund in cases of fraud where they (feel they) can demonstate the customer has been negligent. I wonder what paypal's rules are and what they make of this.

You have my sympathy

Thanks GSB and Ben..

last year my bank account was hacked,apparantly with my card number.the bank contacted me and asked if i had made an itunes purchase,which i hadn't,so they cancelled that card and re-funded me.so.....fingers crossed.

A few years ago I received my card statement and found some purchases that were not mine, I contacted the card company and whilst talking to the fraud department on the phone, another purchase appeared.

It was obviously not myself and the card company saw it happen as well, turns out it was done by a random number generator and the guy was buying train tickets in Austria.

The amounts kept going up each time (£495.00 in total.

oh no... that is harsh... one of the reasons why i choose not to use PP... Here in Europe I think its just easier to use the Paysafecard to make online purchases. Its a prepaid card and you can load it up and then make purchases, no hassle no stress- nothing can get "hacked" or stolen and that makes it safe! Has anyone here ever heard about it or tried it out?

Just received an email ( not fake) from paypal and the case was decided in my favour and they will refund the payments made by the hacker to my account in a couple of days. Oh what a relief:grin:

This serves as a lesson for me and for everybody using paypal.

Note: Paypal will never ask for your password in any circumstances.

Try to phone or contact paypal first if you received any suspicious email asking you to update or confirm your identity.

Paypal will not send an email with an attached link to open(pdf)

I received a really suspicious automated phone call claiming to be Halifax, and the automated lady asked me to confirm my identity with my card number.  EDITED that I thought, hung up and rang Halifax.  Turns out it was them.  I told them they were effectively training people to fall for phishing scams.  Oh well.

Its a relief but I need to change my bank account etc..for security reasons and peace of mind. Im planning to set a separate account for online shopping with limited amount.