It is one of the most popular digital payment services in the world.

But PayPal was offline for more than two hours this morning, leaving thousands without access to their accounts.

Although the company has not yet commented on the cause, reports from Down Detector showed that there were outages as of 11:00 GMT.

A PayPal spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘We experienced a brief technical issue which has been resolved.’

Of the 6,000 PayPal users who reported service issues by midday, nearly 90 percent said they were unable to log into their accounts.

This unexpected problem led to widespread concern that the site had been hacked, as users could no longer access their accounts.

On social media, angry customers rushed to express their frustrations over the disruption.

“It seems like PayPal is going through a complete crisis as no one can log in or get through through their call center,” one commenter wrote on X.

PayPal is back online after a two-hour outage that left thousands of users unable to access their accounts

According to Down Detector, PayPal users started reporting problems shortly after 11am GMT. The number of reports quickly rose to over 6,000 just an hour later

In Britain, most outage reports focused on London, Birmingham and Manchester, but this is believed to be a wider problem

Users started experiencing problems shortly after 11:00 GMT when customers began reporting problems accessing PayPal’s services.

The number of reports rose quickly, reaching more than 6,000 from around the world just an hour later.

In Britain, most outage reports have focused on London, Manchester and Birmingham, but this is believed to be a more widespread problem.

Similarly, PayPayl users in the US reported finding the service unusable.

On social media, customers said they were unable to log into their PayPal accounts through the mobile app or website.

On The message ‘Please check your details and try again’ keeps appearing.’

In a message on PayPal’s status page, the company reported an “ongoing” incident that started at 10:53 GMT this morning.

PayPay said withdrawals, Express Checkout, cryptocurrency services and Venmo were all affected.

On

One commenter wrote that the unexplained outage convinced them that they had fallen victim to a cyber attack

One commenter asked, “Has PayPal been hacked?”

The company wrote: ‘We are experiencing a system issue that may impact multiple products in our production environment.

“Our technical teams are actively working to resolve the issue.”

The problem now appears to have been resolved and Down Detector outage reports have dropped rapidly from their previous peak.

As of 1:14 GMT, there were only 476 reports of issues related to logging in or making purchases through the service.

However, that wasn’t before the sudden disruption caused widespread concern among PayPal users.

Unable to use the essential service, concerned users took to social media with fears that the site may have fallen victim to a cyber attack.

One customer wrote on X: ‘Has PayPal been hacked? Access is not possible for many of us…’

“PayPal disabled your system this morning as I can’t even log into my account and I’m afraid I’m being hacked right now,” another added.

In a statement on PayPal’s status page, the company reported an “ongoing” incident impacting withdrawals, Express Checkout, Crypto and Venmo services

And when it emerged that the site had not been hacked, many took to social media to express their relief.

“I thought my PayPal was hacked or something, but it turns out it doesn’t work for everyone,” one commenter added.

While another added: ‘The PayPal outage left me convinced my account had been hacked and now I need some time to let my adrenaline settle.’

While it is unlikely that PayPal has been hacked, the company has yet to comment on what caused the problems.