Overview

• Several hundred thousand German accounts received an automatic €10 credit, which PayPal says covers fewer than five percent of its users in the country.
• The disruption on August 23–24 followed a failed system update that weakened fraud checks, prompting banks to halt PayPal direct debits and freeze large sums, with one report citing €4 billion at Bayerische Landesbank.
• PayPal says it has paid the large majority of affected merchant transactions, with a smaller set still under review for reimbursement in the coming days.
• Fresh phishing waves target customers with spoofed messages such as Sparkasse “S‑ID‑Check” updates, Volksbank SecureGo plus prompts, and Deutsche Bank phone-number confirmations, which consumer groups urge people to ignore and report.
• Police and watchdogs describe scams using spoofed calls and marketplace QR codes or cloned login pages, including a case with losses above €13,000, and advise verifying URLs, avoiding PINs and passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and contacting banks immediately.