Hi all,

this week I experienced a serious problem with Paypal which I never hard about before.

I auctioned a card from Christopher Cardona (cardowner.co.uk) this week on eBay and when I tried to pay through Paypal it always kept saying to contact either the seller or Paypal. Since there's nothing wrong with my account or balance or whatever I've tried to pay the card through Paypal several times this week, but the same message kept showing up.

So I called Paypal Germany and told them about the problem. The first thing the operator was asking was if I was using my network from home. I denied because I'm on holidays at the moment and use a wireless mobile broadband USB modem on my laptop to access the internet. The operator then said that this would be the explanation of my problem because I'm not connected to my usual IP from home and Paypal's security system automatically suspects a security breach if I try to use my Paypal account via the wireless mobile broadband USB modem with an IP that is used by basicly everyone around me who has the same provider (O2 in this case). He further told me that he can't do anything about it and that I won't be able to make any payments as long as my IP doesn't match the IP that is usually used for making payments.

Has anyone of you ever had the same problem or is it just a problem that Paypal Germany faces? I mean, by the explanation of the Paypal operator that would mean, I can't make any payments when I'm not at home which I personally find very disappointing. I'm travelling a lot and I also want to be able to make usual payments when I'm away from home. I can even use my online banking from Deutsche Bank from any place in the world, so I find Paypal's explanation regarding the different IP = security breach very worrying.

Would be great to hear from people who might have faces the same problems as I did.

Not a problem with Paypal (I haven't tried), but I did find that when I got home from the USA, I had to change my password for Yahoo and Facebook because the usage had been from mobile Wi-Fi. What's the point of having a mobile device (phone, pad etc.)when the providers make it so awkward to maintain contact?

They are also trying to make it as secure as possible. Both these stories show that some companies are actually making an effort to protect their users security online. Like it or not, the easier it is for you to use something on the move, the less secure it becomes and the more vulnerable you are to security breaches. I could certainly live with the minor nuisance over the major hassle of having my information stolen/account broken into/Paypal funds misused and/or stolen.

Personally I suspect a completly different reason why Paypal is doing this. It's not about their customer's security but about their joint-venture with LEA: they want to know who you are and where you are at any time which they can't when I'm using a wireless mobile broadband USB modem.

When I'm back home I'll be running a few tests, such as trying to pay via Paypal from a) friends' places and b) through TOR.

If the TOR exit nodes are all blocked as well but I can use Paypal from my friends' places, it's pretty obvivious, they want to collect as much personal metadata as possible like most major US company to make them accessable for LEA and NSA - which they can't when I'm untraceable through TOR or a wireless mobile broadband USB modem.

This would expose their lame "We're doing it all for our customer's security"-excuse within minutes.

I don't know who the LEA is, here in the UK that acronym stands for Local Education Authority, but Paypal just want you to use their service as much as possible as that's how they make their money. Making it hard for you to do so is not in their interests financially, so I see no reason why they would choose to limit where you can make your payments other than for security reasons. They have probably lost quite a lot of money in recent years refunding users who have been hacked/had their accounts misused. Knowing where you are at any given time does not add to their profits, quite the opposite, so why would they voluntarily waste time, effort and resources to do it ?

On the other hand, this does remind me of the old maxim:

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T out to get you !

eBay, and by extension PayPal, have done nothing for the consumer in the last 3 years that wasn't an advantage to their own agenda. The phrase "its for your own good" has been used to cover everything from online security to laws limiting supersized sodas. In particular the restrictions that eBay has put on buying options is designed not for customer security purposes, but to get them the most fees, with zero chance of eating a loss.

I don't use mobile devices for automatic payments, I try to limit online payments as much as possible and not tie things together. Kevin is right about ease of use making things less safe, but the truth is you can be as careful as you can and still get hacked. That's because your personal information is being stored and data mined by companies you never heard of for medical records, insurance purposes, employment, and of course all the social media that people now take for granted.

Everytime you click that online agreement button or sign that disclosure paper you are giving permission to someone, to do something. And the best part is, we don't have enough information to know who or what we are agreeing to do.

Trust me Raven, I fully understand that eBay and Paypal only do things that benefit them in some way or another

I know a lot of companies are now working on ways to make payments faster and easier, though less secure. This benefits them by reducing the time someone has to think things over and maybe change their minds. Contactless payments, mobile phone payments and the like are all being provided to make it much, much easier for people to spend money on a whim or a stupid impulse. Very much on the lines of: see it, want it....bought it.

There's a great, but at the same time dreadful, advert running here in the UK that shows an old man heading to the hospital to see his new born grandchild. En route he picks up some balloons, a skateboard, some really tacky (and presumably expensive) trainers and a few other odds and ends all with his contactless, instant payment system. The bill would probably stretch to hundreds of pounds but he wouldn't know that until he got back home and got his next statement or checked things online. Could a black-humoured sequel show his grieving children picking things up on the way to his funeral following the heart attack he suffers when he sees the extent of his reckless spending ?