Miss Gullible

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Paypal is an online payment system. It is secure and is often used to buy things through eBay and also to pay for online information products. It saves people having to put their credit card details in each time they buy something.

So what could be wrong with Paypal? You ask. Quite a lot actually. If you go to scam.com and search for Paypal you will see many complaints. In fact there are whole websites dedicated to Paypal complaints.

I had used Paypal many times without a problem, before it all went wrong. It turns out many people have lost money through Paypal and Miss Gullible is no exception. One time was enough to make me very wary. I no longer sell on eBay after this experience.

I needed money desperately, so I decided to sell some items on eBay. I had done this before with no problem. The fees were a bit high, but other than that it had worked out ok. I took my digital photos and put my items up for sale. I already had good feedback from previous transactions, so I was confident I would get a good price for my items.

Most items were low priced, but one item I was selling reached $900. I couldn’t quite believe it. That was a higher bid than I was expecting and I was quite excited. Had I found a niche? I was only expecting about $700

The payment came through by Paypal and I sent the item. I had no reason to doubt the transaction. I had communicated with the buyer, who had good feedback and they had been very polite.

A couple of days later I received a strange email. It made no sense to me. It was quite rude and was asking me for a cut of the money I had made. I didn’t understand how this stranger had got my email address. At first I ignored the email, but then I got another one saying that they would report to Paypal that I had used a fraudulent account, which I hadn’t. I was confused. The person did not believe I was a woman who was not scamming anyone. They thought I was part of a scam.

The next day I had an email from Paypal informing me that my account had been suspended due to fraudulent activity. It turns out that the person who had been emailing me had the wrong email address. They thought I was the buyer and wanted a cut of the money from the item, when they resold it.

The buyer had hacked into someone else’s Paypal account and used their money to make the purchase. Rather than persecuting the person who had stolen the money, Paypal decided to persecute me. They reversed the money, back to the person’s account and charged me $300 in fees for having a negative balance.

I no longer had my item, or any money. Plus Paypal was investigating me for fraud. I felt like a complete criminal and I was in severe debt and couldn’t pay the rent.

Eventually I managed to track down Paypal’s phone number and called them. I waited on hold for a long time and when I got through to someone, I tried to explain that I am not a criminal. They did nothing to help me.

My eBay account was also suspended. All this through no fault of my own. I felt sorry for the person whose account had been hacked into, but in the end they had got their money back, the “buyer” had their item and all I had was fees. I was the only one out of pocket. I couldn’t believe it and neither could my husband.

I felt so guilty, I became rather depressed and it wasn’t long before I looked for comfort by falling for another scam.

Please be careful on eBay and when using Paypal. They are not supportive at all if you have problems with them and are quick to call you a criminal even if you have done nothing wrong.

These are hard scams to avoid, as people sometimes use someone else’s eBay account, so that they have good feedback. It is a good idea to wait for the Paypal funds to clear into your bank, before you send your eBay item.

Learn from Miss Gullible’s mistakes.

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