Are two paypal transactions for £0.00 on bank statement genuine?

[rowenapurplegir]

I recently had 2fraudulent bank card payments on my bank statement following a use of paypal for the first time in months. I then had a new card from the bank and had no more trouble.. but as soon as I logged into paypal again to pay an invoice with my new card, the same day and the day after transactions were visible on my bank statement that had a monetary value of £0.00 just like the previous fraud occurrences, where several transactions of nil value came before the actual stolen money left my account under the name of False companies. The name on these new nil value transactions however is Paypal.. but there is no record of them under my paypal list of activities. The actual item I paid for is listed separately in both my bank and paypal statements. How do I know if this new nil value transaction is a genuine paypal item, and if so what for.? Or if it is evidence of yet more fraud being a result of my paypal usage, then what should I do to prevent it happening again?

[PayPal_Sophie]

Hi rowenapurplegir,

Thanks for posting on the Community Forum and sorry for any concern caused by this.

It sounds like the transactions you are seeing are temporary authorisation holds. Whenever you add or edit a card on your PayPal account, a temporary authorisation charge is made to verify that the card is active and capable of funding your payments. It's essentially a test charge, and it's a standard industry procedure.

Regardless, I would definitely recommend keeping an eye on your PayPal account for any unusual or unauthorised transactions, and do let us know if you have any other questions.

Hope this helps!

Sophie