The PayPal Chronicles

Once upon a time, a fraudulent charge for $900 appeared on my PayPal account.  As in, I got an e-mail confirming a payment of $900 that I had never authorized, to a recipient I had never heard of.  Since my PayPal account was linked to my checking account, they tried to withdraw the money directly.  Three times.

Luckily, $900 was so far beyond the laughable amount of money in my checking account that the transaction was simply denied, all three times.

I immediately filed a claim of unauthorized access to my account with PayPal.  A few days later, I got an e-mail informing me my claim had been denied.  And that was that.  There's no further appeal process when it comes to PayPal.  They're not a bank, and aren't regulated like a bank, and they pull out of any country that tries to regulate them like a bank.  So once they decide the activity isn't fraudulent, there is absolutely, positively nothing you can do about it.  If they'd gotten that $900, I would never have gotten it back.

I closed my bank account and abandoned my PayPal account.  They want to make me pay?  They can sue me.

Some years later, I decided I actually did need a PayPal account in order to do some freelance work.  So I opened up a new account with as much different information as I could.

Some more years later, I wanted to buy my roommate Steve some shot glasses on eBay.  For reasons I can't remember, I wasn't able to use my credit card to pay (maybe I didn't add it in time and the payment was due?), so I did the stupidest thing of my life (based on the action itself, not the consequences) and signed up for something called "PayPal Buyer Credit."  As in, they cover those $16 shot glasses for me for a mere, I don't know, say $52.

For other reasons I can't remember, at some point a phone call was necessary in relation to my Buyer Credit account.  The man at the other end of the line was very adamant that I just link up my bank account with them.

"My concern," I said, "is that if someone were to break in to my account and send themselves like $900, and PayPal decided to deny my claim about it, you could just take it from my bank account and I would have no recourse."

"Oh, that could never happen," he said.

I actually went to the expense of sending them a money order to pay off my Buyer Credit account, just to make sure they didn't snag the routing number off my check and tap into my account without my permission.  When I used Buyer Credit again last year (accidentally), I paid it off by sending a check to a special, alternate address that the very fine print of the contract said I should use if I didn't want to authorize them to take funds out electronically.

I have been uncharacteristically sharp when it comes to these guys.  Fool me once...

Anyway, I just got an e-mail to my old college e-mail account regarding my original PayPal account.  "Our records show that you are the owner of a derelict PayPal account with a balance of $30," it said.  "To claim the funds..." blah blah blah.

NO MENTION of the $900 I owe them.  Just $30 that's all mine; all I have to do is confirm that I exist!

I'll let Admiral Ackbar take this one:

Yes, thank you, Admiral.  E-mail deleted.