PayPal hack: my PayPal was hacked and how I got it back

This is a story about how my PayPal account got hacked and how I got it back. I had an unfortunate day, but with a little touch of blessing from the lucky lady that helped me get back to square one. This story offers good advice for all PayPal account holders around the world.

Day 1 – 8.30 PM IST

I just logged into my Gmail account to check emails, I was surprised to see 4 emails from PayPal. 1. Password changed, 2. Payment sent to some email address 3. Bank accounts deleted 4. Primary email address changed. OMG! I had $ X, XXX in PayPal balance. While viewing these emails, my Gmail account also got disconnected. When I tried to log in again, it didn’t. The hacker watched my every move. My primary email ID was the one I used for all my business and personal contacts and I had 14,000 archived emails and chat conversations.

I felt like blindfolded and abandoned in an unknown forest. I just couldn’t believe this had happened to me. It had Norton anti virus + norton internet security and Spyware doctor, both licensed versions! I know all about fake emails and phishing material, I never clicked on suspicious links.

I realized that … “You are safe only if no one is aiming to attack you.”

After a few minutes someone added me to Yahoo Messenger and said ‘Hello’. I assumed it was the hacker and it was. The first sentence he said to me was ‘Hello, don’t worry, you will get everything back in 7 days’. He told me that he was a nice guy and that this is the first time he’s hacked someone. He also told me that he really needed the funds and that he would return them in 7 days. I almost believed him. I told him to give me back my Gmail account and I told him that it was very important to me and to my surprise he gave it back to me. He asked me what password I needed for the new account and set it up. I went online and changed the password again. I was happy that I got my Gmail back, but I was still very uncomfortable from the feeling that someone had been watching me for so long!

I arrived late at night, I was sleepy but had to hold on. I backed up all my files on my iPod and did a system recovery. After 45 minutes, my PC was like new. I changed all the passwords again and went back to sleep at midnight.

Day 2 – 6.00 AM IST

I saw that my friend was online. I chatted with him and told him the whole story. He scolded me for not responding in time. He was so sure the hacker was no good and he chatted with me to make sure he doesn’t call PayPal. The hacker failed to do that, but nevertheless delayed me 10 hours. I spent almost 30 minutes waiting for the PayPal representative and then someone showed up. I told PayPal the whole story and they listened carefully. They assured me that ‘I will not be responsible for unauthorized payments sent from my account’. I felt good but not very good, I was not so sure I would get the money back. I did what I could have done and needed to relax. I rested from this problem.

Day 3 – 7 PM EST

I called PayPal again. It takes a lot of patience to connect with them. It took me a few minutes to detect my account. They told me that “Your fraudulent payments were voided, did you check your account?” I jumped right there and was so happy. But I COULD NOT LOG IN to my PayPal because the password was not with me! 🙁

I couldn’t reset my password because the hacker changed the security questions too! They advised me to send all the documents and they will help to recover the password.

After a few minutes, the hacker reconnected. And LOL how nervous he got !! … He asked me to send him the documents because he said my account had been limited and needed to be unlocked !! I refrained from saying abusive words and just handled the situation and logged out.

Day 4 – 6 PM EST

I connected to Yahoo Messenger and saw that the hacker had left me an offline message. Woof! frustrated I guess. He left me the PayPal email and password. I hooked up and violated! I entered my PP. It was a lovely moment … The balance was intact. All four fraudulent payments were reversed. However, the account was limited. I just printed the cover page of the fax and sent them the documents.

Day 4 – 3 PM IST

I received an email that my PayPal account has been restored. I immediately went in and sent 4 important payments to my friends and family. I could breathe now again!

Now what’s next? … everything has returned to the starting point! Now that I have learned a good lesson. If we think something like “This can never happen to me”, you really attract that situation and in a few days you realize … the dream comes true … although it is a bad dream in this case.

I contacted my friends and they all told me that I had to kick Norton and Spyware Doctor and buy Kaspersky because that’s the best on the market. I went to that site and reviewed their products. They had antivirus and Internet Security 7.0. The antivirus is built into Internet Security and therefore it is enough to buy the last one. For a year it costs around $ 60 and for 2 years it costs around $ 95. I bought it right away, installed it and activated it. Again I changed all my important passwords.

Bottom line: if you think it won’t happen to you, one day it will happen and you will think about the day you thought it wouldn’t happen to you.

Now that I got my money back, it may not happen to all people all the time. You just need to be aware of that.

Good luck!