She may be 1,500 miles from her native Slovakia, but Natasha Vancisinova feels right at home living in the Irish countryside and working in Dublin for
PayPal as an ICA Fraud/Compliance CORE specialist. It was a lifelong love for the Emerald Isle that drew Natasha to Ireland 17 years ago at age 19 with “little money, a very small backpack and no English.” She worked in catering for a time and her English steadily improved before starting at PayPal 11 years ago when its European Operations Center began ramping up.
How did you make your way to PayPal?
I was just lucky. Someone mentioned that PayPal and eBay were hiring people with a second European language besides English, and I just went for it. There are a few of us from back then still around.
Fraud prevention might sound like an ominous job to some. How do you see your role?
In a way, we’re PayPal’s private detectives. We have internal tools we rely on, but we do a lot of external investigation online as well. We’re always looking out for our genuine customers but at the same time we have to make sure fraudulent customers don’t slip through our fingers. Quite often, our customers aren’t fraudulent, they just don’t manage their business well. In those cases we try to educate them. For example, we will try to help them reduce the number of complaints they’re receiving. We don’t want to lose customers just because of an honest mistake.
What’s something that would surprise people about your job?
We cover dozens of languages because our accounts come in from across Europe. My team of 18 includes 11 different nationalities, and many of them speak three or four languages on top of English. I’m probably the one with the fewest – English, Slovak and Czech.
How has your career evolved with PayPal?
I started in customer service, working in the UK market. After six months, I moved to fraud, and I’ve been part of ICA since 2009. I’ve always liked to investigate, to dig into things. I also care about our customers and I want to make sure they don’t get scammed. That’s where I get the most satisfaction.
What does your team do outside of work?
I’m normally in charge of organizing our outings. While we sometimes go out to dinner, we’re also adrenaline junkies. Our last outing was wall climbing, and we’ve also been kayaking and go-karting.
What drew you to Ireland?
As a teenager in Slovakia, I was obsessed with pictures of Ireland. I had a book full of photos of stone walls, green grass and sheep. I just loved everything about the culture. I would listen to music like The Corrs. They were pop songs but always had traditional Irish music and instruments.
Do you feel more Irish than Slovakian these days?
I think so – or at least about equal. I remember lying in bed as a 16-year-old and looking at my books about Ireland. Now I live in a cottage along a backcountry road, with sheep and cows on the farm behind me. But I do joke that because my partner and my daughter are completely Irish, I’m the only Slovakian in the house.