A couple of years ago, I sold an MP3 player on Ebay. I accepted payment through PayPal. I was paid with a stolen credit card. The money was transferred into my account, but I had not yet been made aware the card was stolen.

About two weeks later, I was emailed by a concerned fellow Ebay-er who had been paid by the same fraudulent buyer, with a different stolen card. They were emailing me to find out whether PayPal had taken the money back out of my account, as they had with theirs. I replied no, and we exchanged many emails.

As it turned out, I was contacted by one or two other sellers who had also been paid by the same fraudulent buyer, and they had also had the money removed from their accounts by PayPal.

PayPal is a credit card transaction company. Credit card companies are insured, and the person whose card was stolen didn't have to pay for that, so where does Paypal get off stealing the money back from me? If, in the "real world", a store is paid with a stolen card, do you think they're just out the money? NO. But PayPal, whose web site even boasted at that time that they would "never" access your personal account or remove funds without your explicit, express permission seems to think it's okay to just go back in and take the money away from you, and you're just shit out of luck.

Well, lucky for me, these unfortunate sellers before me gave me enough forewarning, and I marched my butt down to HSBC and CLOSED my bank account so they could not take it back! THAT is the extreme measure to which I had to go to ensure my $150 was not stolen back by PayPal, as they did to the others.

PayPal's guidelines, or rules, or whatever it is they go by, are set in such a way to protect only themselves, and not their ripped-off customers. And if you think it can't happen to YOU, well, just try it.

As of my last contact with the parties PayPal disserviced, they are currently involved in a Class-Action lawsuit against the company.

If you would like more information, please feel free to contact me.

Also, please visit this site - I've just discovered it, and found that apparently this is a chronic problem among people using PayPal.