ACCOUNT TAKEOVER

Two charges David Melton never made showed up on his PayPal account, both for sports tickets to a Knicks-Bulls game. One, for $1,098, hit a linked American Express card. The other, for $757, pushed his PayPal balance into the negative. Together they came to $1,855 for a game he had nothing to do with. So he did what you are supposed to do: he opened disputes with both PayPal and Amex. And both turned him down, telling him he had made the purchases. He had not, and he spent hours trying to piece together how it had even happened. Here is the trap that catches so many fraud victims. When someone gets into your account and buys something using your own credentials, the transaction can look perfectly legitimate to an automated security system. The computer sees a login with your name on it and assumes the charge is yours, which is very likely why both first-round disputes were denied without a human ever taking a real look.