Perhaps I am just too paranoid. I have been doing a fair amount of reading in the area of forensic accounting and its relation to basic scams. It is entirely possible that I now have a bit too much skeptisim when it come to these things.
I just completed a paypal transaction where I received $300 before fees. Fees should have been 2.9% plus $0.30, for an even $9. To my surprise I was charged $12. I am pretty sure these billings are completely automated with no human interaction. Given the huge volume of PayPal transactions it seems unlikely it would occur any other way. So how could such a "mistake" occur?
I have read about many scams that operate something like this. A few lines of code are interested to cause a small amount to be skimmed off to some other location. In the case of banks, perhaps a few cents of interest is taken from many savings accounts. Who would notice a small error such as this? Doubtful many ever check these calculations. A small error, multiplied over 100s of thousands of transactions, adds up to a sizeable sum.
I have written Paypal asking what is going on. I have not heard back, but I suspect they will simply say it was a computer error. My account will be corrected and that will be that. Perhaps some additional code will now identify my account as one that checks the fee calculation so the "accidental error" does not occur again.
So have I been reading too much forensic accounting texts?
