General Chat

Somebody's hacked into my paypal account. Luckily they didn't get anything. The ammount they tried to steal was more than I had in the bank; so the bank wouldn't pay up.
Paypal aren't at all helpful. I've had to go to the bank and tell them to block all future payments to paypal in order to prevent them from doing this again.
I wouldn't advise anybody to use Paypal. :-|

As they were so greedy, it was a blessing in disguise.

We've linked our pay-pal account to a credit card. It provides a buffer if something should go awry.

All our internet purchases go onto a credit card in some form or another, and get paid off in full when the bill comes in. We'd never give internet sites details of our bank accounts

+++DetEcTive+++ is quite right.

For a small sum obtain one of the cash type debit cards that you can use for holiday spending etc - Tesco for instance have them. Then just charge the card up with a float and boost it as and when needed. PayPal, GRu and so on will work just fine with these cards.

That way the worse that can happen is to write off the card.

HOWEVER if paying for something important eg fridge freezer, new tv it is a good idea to use a credit card ( not debit card ) as if there is a problem it is often easier to claim against VISA/MC/AMEX than the supplier.

PayPal will assess your password for strength. If it is not "strong" change it until it is. Always change passwords every 90 days.

In my experience PayPal are a right pain to get through to in their menu system but once you have a human bean they are ok. I just reply nonsense to their robot until it gives up and I get transferred to a human.

PayPal have never been hacked other than DenialOfService.

If somebody was able to use yr password then any of these were true
(a) it was easy to guess for a password robot
(b) somebody else knows it
(c) your machine was hacked - for instance if you had the login details saved in your browser you might just as well have posted them in the local phone box browser password retention is convenient but not secure
(d) it was held in your mobile phone

You should change all your passwords urgently and also any PINS if you had them saved onto any disk or thumb drive.

Both on line and PIN / cip based authentication are nowhere near as tight as the banks like to claim and most people believe. The basic problem is that most of these systems rely on technology as it was 20 years ago not today. The bad boys have some nasty tricks and it is both easier and far, far cheaper to blame the customer for all snafus.

UPDATE: Knaves usually make a test purchase before going for more. They also usually change the password thus blocking the user from getting in. If neither of these things happened in your case then the culprit may well be known to you.

Paypal were no help whatsoever; so I've closed my account. It took me over a month to do that much mind. It looks as if somebody got in through Ebay; so I've closed my Ebay account as well. :-|