Payments Without a Password ?

[PaulP51D]

Hi All,

I recently made a small charitable payment towards the Philippines disaster fund. The advert for the appeal popped up on my Facebook page. After clicking on the ad I was asked if I would like to pay by Paypal or credit card. I selected Paypal and clicked OK and immediately got a Thank You page - no password required, no check and confirm the amount, just Thank You.

I checked my Paypal history and sure enough the money had been paid over.

I am furious about this, as I have hitherto regarded Paypal as a safe-ish method of payment and now I do not. Does anybody know how or why Paypal have allowed this to happen? In my view this should never happen under any circumstances, so I hope the answer doesn't come back as anything to do with linking to Facebook, or the like.

I emailed Paypal with the same question about 48 hours ago, but have not had a response so far.

Thanks

Paul

[snowshoe]

Have you checked your web browser's settings?  (Especially for saving passwords, etc.)

When was the last time you deleted your web browser's cookies, temp files and history?

[PaulP51D]

It should make no difference.

[PayPal_Siobhán]

Hi there PaulP51D,

Thank you for posting & I appreciate your concerns. 

If you do not have a payment agreement with Facebook set up then please contact PayPal directly and this is something we can investigate for you. 

Here's how to check your payment agreements:

1. Go to www.paypal.com/uk and log in to your account.
2. Click Profile near the top of the page.
3. Select My Money.
4. Next to 'My Preapproved payments', click Update.

If you have a Facebook payment agreement here you can click on 'Details' to view creation date etc. and also cancel this agreement if you wish.

Let us know how you get on!

Siobhan

[PaulP51D]

Thanks Siobhan,

That was a great help and answered the question of how it happened. In the past I have advertised with Facebook and this apparently means that in doing so I must have agreed to authorise them to automatically deduct money from my Paypal account. Hence, when I I went to make the donation the money just went without me entering a password.

Your advice was doubly helpful, as when I was in the My Money section of my Profile I found a couple of recurring payments that I should have previously cancelled, but which I had forgotten about. So, you saved me throwing away at least $60.

Very much appreciated.

Paul

[n1Gb]

Paypal has been paying for another account holder without a password. I have been to "internet options" and deleted history, cookies and all of that stuff. I went into paypal account settings and checked something in the "maze"  that said it would require my password for all transactions. I even changed the password about ten days ago. It still happens.

Lucky for me, it is my sons account that is getting his purchases paid for. He tells me and pays me and I am not at a loss.

The problem is this, I paid for a purchase for him in September. I entered my password and it paid and shipped it to his address. Then in early October, he made a small purchase and was prepared to enter his credit card number, when Paypal popped up and verified the payment and thanked him. He told me about it and brought me the money. I called paypal and got hold of a person who I could not hardly understand. I told them the problem and they gave me some instructions which I did and verified. A couple of days later, it did it again. A man from Paypal sent me an email with some instructions which I had already done, but I verified them. 

Friday or Saturday, he made another purchase on EBAY and a s soon as he went to pay now, it popped up, paid,  and told him thank you.

His account is not my account. He doesn't know my account name. He doesn't know my password or my previous password.

The only thing common is our last name. I had paid for a few other people in the last few years and had it shipped to their addresses. I eleiminated all of the extra sipping addresses in paypal so there should be no connection there.

What have I done wrong.

[brian532]

I had a similar thing just now, paying for a photo order from Boots -- I clicked on 'pay using PayPal' and it all happened automatically whereas usually I have to log on to PayPal to confirm any payment.  And I have not saved my PayPal password on my computer, but I was logged on to Boots who know my email address, and must have used that to access my PayPal a/c.

[brian532]

I've checked my account as suggested above, and see that I have authorised automatic payment by Snapfish, who pick up payment for Boots.  However, that authorisation is probably related to a standing order or direct debit.  So you have a problem if you set up a S/O or whatever as that may let you in for payments you don't want to be automatic.  The system may not be able to tell which is which.

This isn't a problem if you make the order yourself, but it's unclear how they can stop someone else pretending to be you.  Do PayPal have an answer to this?