Always pays to check your all your accounts on a regular basis.

WHY OH WHY are people afraid to say EBAY on this forum. Much quicker to type than "That well known auction site." Everybody here uses it probably so what is the problem with using the correct name. ?

Sorry for the rant but just one of my pet hates along with teh .

regards

Oldiron I couldn’t agree more, quite happy to name PayPal by name but not Ebay.

A few years back i noticed a similar thing with my credit card and notified my bank , it turned out to be fraudulent and somehow through facebook which i have never used and never will.

The money was refunded by the bank ,that credit card cancelled and a new one issued ,.The teller asked me what i used my credit card for and i said to do my shopping and it was also linked to my paypal account -the teller explained to me that it was fraught with danger as you can have money withdrawn by fraudulent operators via things like paypal very easily .

They set up a debit account for me to use on paypal as it won’t pay money that isn’t in the account and if i know I’m going to make a purchase online i first transfer the required amount into that account and proceed .

I decided to check this one day and as they stated it wouldn’t let me transfer enough to overdraw the account – sorry funds unavailable was the message i got back when i tried .

Every time i use either paypal or my apple account i get bombarded by fraudulent emails saying my account has been locked or someone has accessed my account and please click on the link below to update your account details – seriously do they think I’m that stupid !

Of a similar nature I had a very realistic Smishing attempt yesterday (Smishing is phishing by phone SMS).
The SMS purported to be from EE (my phone provider) saying they were unable to process my last invoice payment and providing a http://WWW.EE.CO.UK.abc/xyz.com/account link (not that exactly) link.

The giveaways were the .co.uk and .com in the link and the fact that the origin was a full mobile telephone number. A genuine provider SMS would normally be rom a 4 digit number. And of course the common on that it did not have my name in it.

Reported it to EE and they confirmed it was fraud and that anumber of people had fallen for it.

I don't authorise PayPal to automatically debit my bank account. You have to let them to open a paypal account these days, but can, and I suggest you should, cancel this once the account is set up. You have to transfer funds manually but at least you have control. It's not just fraud, I know someone who sold a vluable item and took the paypal payment out and a couple of weeks later the buyer made a complaint, paypal then took the same amount out of his current accout to put "on hold" while they sorted it out. No warning whatsoever.

I have reached that age where I get a free TV licence(for now) and recently have received an EMail warning me that my licence is due that day and should be renewed before midnight or face a fine of £1000. This has happened a number of times.

I have an official letter from the TV people advising that a new licence is not required until next June. I ignore these EMails because they are a scam.

A similar dodge is when you look to renew the car or driving licence, the search engine will take you to a number of siites which charge a fee to submit the request to the DVLA. I believe a similar scam is operating for renewing a passport. They charge for a service which is free from the official site.

Don't know how to turn it off, my account just gives option to turn it on. If all else fails ask them.

Robert G8RPI.

I had 2 incidences where a company deducted an amount twice and when enquired i was told it was a mistake and will be corrected 3 days later my money was payed back, A thought crossed my that an acute cash flow problem can be quickly solved this way for the customers account.

Ian, this looks to be a question of the funding source you have nominated. If you go into your Paypal account and make your default funding source a credit card instead of bank account, Paypal will then put charges on to your credit card rather than take payment directly from your bank account.

We have those here too in Canada. They haven't worked too well here in my experience. Our sales tax (GST) is added at the time of sale – not buried in the price – but many retailers of the cards couldn't, or wouldn't, understand that they should not charge tax on the card at the time of its sale because tax would be applied on the goods the card was used to purchase.

I gave up on them.

(I just re-read what you said. The specific restaurant, itunes etc cards work well enough, its the "general" cards such as Visa gift cards that are the problem. And in some cases there's a few percent fee when you purchase the card too.)

Edited By Bandersnatch on 14/09/2019 16:25:42