>>do not even have any information about any bank account of mine: when I
>>first signed up, I gave them a bank account no., they made a small
>>deposit (a few cents) to that account,

 KS> Well, here we are: you GAVE them your banc account, THEY,
 KS> repeat, "THEY" made a "small" deposit to that account. In

read this carefully, kris... he told them his account /number/ and they
made a deposit (inbound) to the account... he didn't "give them the
account" as the context seems to be saying...

 KS> Donald's case it was more than a few not so small deposit's
 KS> following each other. Not to big, not to small, in order
 KS> the victum shouldn't be aware to soon about his situation.

errrmmm... seems to me that in don's case, it was _withdrawls_ (outbound)
not deposits...

 KS> And the core ot the case is at Ebay/Paypal there are almost
 KS> for sure accessories to the ongoing frauds, making it a very
 KS> bad idea to "report" anything about fraud to Ebay/Paypal.

it also seems to me that don was the victim of a phishing expedition,
too... you cannot blame ebay/paypal on those... sorry...

>>It's true that, when I choose to make a payment with "plastic,"
>>PayPal reminds me of the benefits (additional insruance, maybe?)
>>of paying directly from a bank account.

 KS> Very odd, as if you can pay directly to/from a banc account,
 KS> why on Earth would you need Paypal then?

they mean "transferring the money to paypal directly from the
account" instead of jumping thru the hoops of using credit cards...
these days, i don't see much difference and especially so when one uses a
debit card... in fact, i've not seen many online places even make a
distinction between a credit card and a debit card... i suspect that
ebay/paypal don't make any distinction, either, and simply have a canned
response page for those using any plastic at all...

)\/(ark