I just had my PayPal account hacked also. I made the mistake of using the same password for PayPal, Gmail, and Facebook. I think they grabbed my password from Facebook first through a phishingThe act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information. scamA confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit; I fell for. I thought I had been reported for violating Facebook policies, so I attempted to login and verify my information. Well, the login attempts kept failing so I gave up. But the next day, I could log into Facebook no problem. I bet I was logging into a phishing page the previous day!

Best practice is to use a separate password for everything but how in the world do you keep up with all of the different passwords???

Keep a notebook. And you are correct in that you should have a different password for everything you do online. But you should also change passwords weekly on any website that has to do with money......such as Paypal, bank accounts, investment accounts, etc.

If you're like me, though, you have a hard time coming up with new passwords. That's why I use a password generator, such as Strong Password Generator (www.strongpasswordgenerator.com). It spits out completely generic passwords. All you have to do is tell it how many characters you want.

Just remember to write them down in a notebook!

Oh man, that is a scary thought. I have often worried about how secure banking online really is. Are the Paypal accounts that are being hacked into personal or upgraded to business. It may not even matter, but I thought I would ask. That's a great idea about the password generator.

I had mine in a notebook and my friend swears that makes it insecure. How else is a person supposed to keep up with all these different passwords? I have to write them down or I would always have to use the "Lost Password" feature for all the sites I am registered on!

Katie, my hacked account was a personal account but according to Paypal the security is the same no matter which type of account you have. Mine got access after hacking my gmail - my own fault for using same password on both. There is a feature on gmail to always log in using https and everyone needs to enable it. This makes it a whole lot harder to hack. I won't say impossible as the hackers usually find a way if they want it bad enough but it's much less likely.

I rarely keep alot of funds in my paypal account for that reason. I am always getting bogus emails saying that I need to verify my account. Watch out for these as they are hackers trying to get your info.

Same thing here, Hulo. I won't keep no more than fifteen or twenty dollars in my Paypal account. If there's more, I'll transfer it to my bank. I know online money accounts are supposed to be safe, but I just don't trust that they'll protect me from hackers and such.

I think the advise of not keeping a lot of money in your Paypal account is a wise choice. There is always a chance your password could get stolen or hacked no matter how careful you are. That isn't to say that you shouldn't take care to have different passwords on everything that are difficult to guess.

Oh my God, I couldn't agree more. I also had the same password for almost all sites. It was just plain irresponsibility. My close friend, being a spam cop technician, once visited me and ask to use my computer to check his mail. When I saw how his password was more than 20 chars long, I realized how important is to have a strong password. Because of all people, he being a technician in that niche, knows best the importance of this, of course alongside the fact that you don't use one password for all your sites.

When dealing with PayPal or any of those online payment processing companies is to get a bank account dedicated to them. Even when you transfer money to your bank account, the money still is not safe. PayPal and the other payment processing companies can transfer the money back out of your account if they want to do so. Don't believe me, read their agreement. They allow you to make electronic transfers, but they can also do electronic withdrawals when they want. I keep a few hundred in my PayPal account and a few hundred in the bank account I have setup for online companies to play with. I transfer from PayPal to the dedicated bank account and then transfer from the dedicated bank account to my real account PayPal, eBay, and the others know nothing about.