My divorce was final in 2007. In the spring of 2009, my ex-husband opened a PayPal account in my name and made $3000 worth of purchases. PayPal advance-credited the merchants, and my ex closed his bank account. So PayPal was left holding the bag for those purchases.
The balance went into collections in my name. The first I knew about it was over a year later, when my mother received a collections letter with my previous last name. I immediately inquired with PayPal, and they said that this is a case of "friendly fraud" because I knew the person who had made the charges, and that I am responsible for the charges.
PayPal should not advance credit to merchants! It is too easy to open a PayPal account, which makes it easy to defraud innocent people. Just because I know someone who is trying to destroy me financially does not make it any less of a crime. There should be just as much protection.
0 comments