Dr.Jeff
True Classic
I just received a letter from Synchrony Bank, owner of PayPal credit services, regarding my application for credit. However I never applied for such credit. This is the second letter I've received regarding attempted fraud through PayPal in the past few months. Apparently PayPal is being breached and false applications for credit are being submitted. I'm sure this is nothing new, but I was rather surprised at what I found.
I called the bank to follow up on it. They verified the application had my name, address, social security number, phone number, etc.; enough to give the credit against me. However for some unknown reason there was something questionable about it so (luckly) they reached out to me with the letter. An investigation is in process and the bank will supposedly contact the credit reporting agencies to have the inquiry removed. I get copies of my reports roughly every year or so to verify things. But these incidents (even if denied) do reflect negatively on your FICO scores if you do not go through all the processes to have them cleared (a bit of a hassle and time consuming).
One difficulty I had in this case was finding a way to even contact Synchrony Bank. All of their contact options begin with your account number...but there isn't one. Luckily I found a phone number that eventually (after a lot of automated phone options) led to a live customer service rep, who then transferred me to another department, who was able to verify things, and then transferred me to the department that handles it. Hopefully they will do what they said.
As I mentioned this is the second such incident I've had related to PayPal. By comparison, I've only had one other attempted credit fraud case in my life, from any source. So getting two in a relatively short period from PayPal makes me think they may be a bigger risk than I thought. Synchrony says they acquired the PayPal business about the same time as the prior attempt was made. So it might be a issue with them more than PayPal? No idea, but wanted to alert my friends here on the forum to keep an eye open.
I called the bank to follow up on it. They verified the application had my name, address, social security number, phone number, etc.; enough to give the credit against me. However for some unknown reason there was something questionable about it so (luckly) they reached out to me with the letter. An investigation is in process and the bank will supposedly contact the credit reporting agencies to have the inquiry removed. I get copies of my reports roughly every year or so to verify things. But these incidents (even if denied) do reflect negatively on your FICO scores if you do not go through all the processes to have them cleared (a bit of a hassle and time consuming).
One difficulty I had in this case was finding a way to even contact Synchrony Bank. All of their contact options begin with your account number...but there isn't one. Luckily I found a phone number that eventually (after a lot of automated phone options) led to a live customer service rep, who then transferred me to another department, who was able to verify things, and then transferred me to the department that handles it. Hopefully they will do what they said.
As I mentioned this is the second such incident I've had related to PayPal. By comparison, I've only had one other attempted credit fraud case in my life, from any source. So getting two in a relatively short period from PayPal makes me think they may be a bigger risk than I thought. Synchrony says they acquired the PayPal business about the same time as the prior attempt was made. So it might be a issue with them more than PayPal? No idea, but wanted to alert my friends here on the forum to keep an eye open.
