PayPal glitch causes duplicate account withdrawals

PayPal is battling to fix a glitch that has been causing duplicate debit card withdrawals and deposits on some customer accounts since the beginning of September.

The problem first surfaced on 6 September when some PayPal customers noticed duplicate withdrawals from their debit cards that sent their accounts into the red. Two weeks later more PayPal customers then also reported duplicate withdrawals and deposits into their accounts.

PayPal is blaming the duplicate withdrawals on a third-party processing error with some PIN-based transactions.

eBay discussion forums have been inundated by angry customers who are unable to tell what their actual PayPal account balance should be. They are claiming they can't access their funds because the accounts have gone into the red.

One seller said: "I'm trying hard to make sense of the 20+ erroneous withdrawals/corrections. After one hour on phone-hold I was told if something is wrong I have to file a formal chargeback request for each incident. I'm quite exhausted from this silliness."

A statement from PayPal's parent company eBay, posted on one of its discussion forums on 19 September, apologised for the inconvenience and said: "Although we initially believed this irregularity was corrected last week, it appears that some transactions are still being affected. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible."

No-one from PayPal was immediately available for comment although the company said the problem is confined to US customers.