Q: PayPal card/account stolen and charged someone's Social security debit card. What will happen legally?
My friend's PayPal debit card was stolen and her account hacked. She's is being blamed for charging this lady's card by social security. The lady that has her card used gets disability. My friend didn't do it but has no way to prove she didn't do it. They said they are putting a warrant out for her now. Can they do that? How can she prove it wasn't her?
A:
Fortunately, she doesn't have to PROVE it wasn't her. The prosecutor has the burden to prove it WAS her. Your friend needs reasonable doubt that it could have been someone else... that she too was a victim of identity theft. Unfortunately, she is starting from a difficult position if she didn't report suspicious activity from her PayPal account. She might want to hire a computer forensic expert to investigate. If she goes that route, would be wise to choose an investigator with the experience and credentials to testify in court. If her "expert" is just a local kid from the Geek Squad that won't necessarily help, might actually make matters worse.
PayPal sends email confirmation receipts of all purchases so your friend should be ready to explain why she didn't take action if she started receiving notifications of purchases she did not authorize. The company that hosts her email account can provide logs that show if and when those emails were received, if and when the emails were opened, and if and when the emails were deleted.
If those email server logs do not show the expected information, there should be an evaluation of whether or not her email account itself has been compromised. This is a very real concern given Paypal's user-authentication scheme.
The PayPal computers saved the transaction details, which should include the IP address of the computer or other device that initiated the transaction. Maybe it will show an address in Russia and your friend can prove she hasn't been to Russia?
Bruce Alexander Minnick agrees with this answer
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