Did you know….

Lesson for the day.

Did you know that, when making payment for products and orders via Paypal, that if you inadvertently enter in an incorrect email address and the payment goes through – ‘too bad, so sad, payment is gone, sorry’.

We’re learned that lesson in a rather painful way. Recently, some lovely person hacked into our website, and managed to change the automatic Paypal address that our payments should have been sent to. So, instead of sending it to our email address, Paypal payments were diverted to a fraudulent address. And, as the payments went straight through, Paypal say they cannot recover those funds, so it is up to us to politely ask for the money to be sent back. Yep – as if some thief is just going to say, ‘Oops – so sorry, of course you may have your money back’.

So, we’re left with the situation where our customers have, in good faith, followed the Paypal links and sent the payment, but, we have never received the funds. Of course, we’ve honoured the orders, but it means we’re out of pocket again (so, what else is new?).

I’m left wondering how often this happens? I can see the mistake happening so easily, and often. And of course, Paypal still take their little cut in fees, so it’s not a problem for them. I’m surprised I’d never heard of it before. We live and learn.

In short, be very careful when sending Paypal payments, especially if you need to type in the email address manually. I had always assumed that if you made a mistake, you could recover the money, but no! Unless the email address you send it to does not exist or does not have a Paypal account, you can say ‘goodbye’ to your money. And then, either you, or your supplier, will be out of pocket, and some thug is made very happy.

Linda