Here's my public service announcement for the day. Many of us have Paypal accounts, right? With Paypal, you often have it tied to bank account, or credit card, as "back up funding" to the account. Well, my tip is never tie your paypal account to your debit card (or a credit card) that has access to (pulls from) your main checking account. I did, and for 8 years, have never had any problem.
Until this weekend. Someone(s) accessed my paypal account and using my information made four purchases. Since I didn't have a paypal balance at the time (I never do), Paypal transfered the funds from my bank account to cover the purchases. So almost $4,000 was taken out of my bank account over the weekend. Since it was the weekend, I couldn't see it "hitting" my account. But this morning, whoa! I am overdrawn, bigtime, in our normal, day-to-day household account, and am having to deal with these unauthorized purchases. Perfect.
And in the background, I am getting angry emails from the people who sold stuff (to the thieves) using my email and bank account wondering why I am trying to reverse the transaction, etc, when they have already handed over the stuff. From what the emails say, it looks like the purchases are for something called "WOW" or "World of Warcraft". I have no idea what it is, but gather it's some kind of computer game? Anyway, I feel bad for all involved, myself included, but most certainly not the scumbags who did it.
Anyway, word to the wise, learn from my mistake and never set up your main bank account as the backup funding of your paypal account. It's a big, hairy mess that I think will be cleared up eventually, but in the mean time (8-10 business days as Paypal says) I am sort of in a bind.