Transaction generated a new address added to PayPal

[kharrisma]

Hi Forum Folke,

Made a purchase at BestBuy using PayPal as my payment method, and very shortly afterward received an email from PayPal:

"You added a new address.

This is just a quick confirmation that you added an address in your PayPal account.

Here are the details:"

Name

Address updated:

XXX Street Name

PKXYzxSDSGmlSrAQXSuCUzkzNczKiZcFZQWoNm

Town, State, Zipcode

I did nothing during this transaction to make any kind of address change.  It's still the correct basic address, but a long alphabetical character string was somehow  inserted between the street address and the town and State, making it a four-line address instead of three:

The bogus character string is the exact one that got added to my address.  As I said, I did nothing, entered nothing into data input fields at all, so I've no idea what this nonsense is, how it happened, what it means, what to do about it, or if anything even needs to be done.

In checking my PayPal account info, this additional character string appears nowhere.  Anyone have any idea what's going on here, and whether or not I should be concerned about it?  Do I need to close this account and open a new one?  Thanks for any input here, it's appreciated!

[monette02]

Same here - ordered something from Best Buy online this morning. Same email appeared in my inbox with a different string of characters, and my zip code was missing. Sender is the paypal service [removed] address and it came at the same time as all the order/payment confirmation emails, so I don't think it's spam... The string of characters doesn't show up anywhere in my paypal or best buy accounts, or in any of the order/payment confirmation emails. And it definitely didn't show up at any point during the checkout process. The email from paypal says: 

"Since this address is a gift address, you can send packages to it with just a click. Please note that you can't link your credit card to a gift address.

If you'd like to make this your primary address, log in to your PayPal account and go to your Profile."

And I dare not click anything in the email. Even if it is really from paypal, I'm afraid clicking "this wasn't me" will only lock up my account.

[migojones]

Same problem on the same day. Best Buy has no record of my purchase. Both Pay Pal and my credit card company say it is not their problem, and I need to resolve it with the vendor, yes, the same one that has no record of the purchase.

[AnneML]

Same here. Changed my password through the paypal website and am keeping an eye on that purchase.

[kharrisma]

For what it's worth, this appears to be a BestBuy thing... my order appeared just as they said it would, no issues of any kind, beyond generating a message from PayPal regarding adding the new address that appears nowhere in my PayPal account.  I think that to be safe I'm going to close this account and open a new one, AND not use PayPal to purchase from BestBuy in the future, UNLESS someone can explain what that extra character string was for, and why it generated that PayPal message for an otherwise invisible change.

Trying to contact PayPal is a colossal waste of time - - nothing but canned answers to questions that have no relevance to my issue, which is why I came here instead of beating my head against that particular wall.

I did contact BestBuy, but the guy at the other end of the chat is just a screen jockey, and he couldn't see anything different than I saw digging into things from my end.  I think I'm going to send them a snail mail to bypass the usual online flak and tail-chasing that usually happens with things of this nature.  IF I get anywhere with them I'll post back here.

[migojones]

Re: AnneML - I ended up going to the local Best Buy, and the manager was able to locate my order. It was not in my personal BBY account, but he was able to find it. My original reason for getting a PayPal account was to protect me from this kind of incident. I did file a dispute and a human was nice enough to look into the matter and conclude that it was a BBY problem, and that everything was OK on the PayPal end of things. So now I am wondering, what advantage PayPal offers me? My expectation was that PayPal would take responsibility and make sure the charge was removed from my credit card, and figure out what the problem was. I thought PayPal was supposed to serve as a kind of security barrier between the vendor and my credit card, protecting my financial info from cyber criminals. My technical advisor (my son) tells me I should just use my AMEX credit card.

[Katbear27]

Same thing happened to me with PayPal and BestBuy. The address that my "account " has been changed to is the BestBuy pickup address. Address is right on both accounts, so I'm not worried. Someone is picking up for me, so I printed out the receipt with a bar code for him.

[Shelly2222]

PLEASE TELL ME YOUR PACKAGE CAME I just received an email and the address has those lines on my pay pal account from what I researched I did add an address it's the only way it would let me use pay pal I'm praying to God that's what it is I'm going to call best buy and pay pal I bought a ps5 and I'm having a panic attack right now and it's my kids dad's bank account linked please tell me it's just something they do unharmed

[migojones]

Update: In the course of trying to figure this out, I filed a dispute with PayPal. While they were processing the dispute, I went in person to Best Buy and the manager was able to find my order and show me that everything was hunky dory. Today PayPal tells me they have resolved the dispute in my favor, and are refunding me the amount. Since I assume my product is still on the way from BestBuy, I need to figure out how to decline the refund. It would be nice if there were an easy way to talk to a human....

[JET314]

The same thing happened to me. Made a purchase at BestBuy using PayPal as my payment method, and very shortly afterward received an email from PayPal:   "You added a new address." My new address had the same code WCYixeCnvdenaaKExxXLPpIsuMqxjJtZfnpTfm.