eBay/Craigslist ebay

[rpoage]

You did the right thing. Never reply to these as they are often phish adds to harvest information. I always log directly into my account that the letter refers to and check if there is any validity to the letter or email.

 

[David Cockey]

one day i tried to log on to my email account and it would not let me it said that my password did not match my user name. it was the same one that i had used for 10 years......was i surprised when i logged on---- everything was in chinese writing. quickly i checked paypal same chinese writing, ebay same thing. once they get into ebay they have access to all your info on file on ebay. from ebay they go to paypal which is linked to ebay......

eBay and PayPal are not the root causes of your problem; rather it's someone getting control of your email account and using the info they found there. Where they got the information to use to hack into your account is a good question. They needed your email address and some info about your password. eBay and PayPal shouldn't have had anything to do with figuring out your password.

Depending on what was in the email they got your problems could have been with a credit card, a bank account, etc. Fortunately sounds like it turned out not too bad for you.

 

[Superduper]

I'm a charter member of ebay and have been using them for 10 years now. I've conducted probably 1000 transactions over the years although my feedback does not reflect that as I refuse to be held hostage to feedback-first-for-reciprocate requests.

Other than the occassional problem with individual buyer/sellers, which you would expect because you ARE doing business with primarily individuals and not Walmart, I have had virtually no issues with ebay (or paypal for that matter) as a company. That being said, I should mention that I've probably also received 1000 emails that appear to be from ebay but which aren't really. If any one of those emails were responded to (or links followed), no matter how official looking, my account would have been hijacked.

Because it is now after the fact, no one can say definitively whether you inadvertently followed an email link or other link while browsing to a site that "appeared" to be an official ebay site but suffice it to say that somehow, a malevolent site captured your username/password combo. Based on my experience and your symptoms, I am going to say that this is NOT an ebay problem but a seperate issue that you have which deserves further looking into.

The fact that your email account AND eBay account AND paypal account were compromised is a clue that perhaps you should investigate spyware or virus activity on your own computer (or another one on your network). The reason is because presumably, all your accounts have UNIQUE passwords and ebay, paypal, and hotmail does NOT know or store the passwords to those other accounts. Contrary to perception, even though paypal is owned by ebay, ebay does not store paypal passwords. In fact, when you pay using paypal after a successful auction bidding campaign, you are still prompted to enter your paypal password. Even if someone was able to login to your ebay account, they would not be able to access your email or paypal account without knowing all of those passwords. So the possible areas to consider as the source would be the password storing services (such as those offered by microsoft and google, i.e. passport), your own computer probably stores your user/password info and spyware, virus or other such hack could phone home on regular basis or otherwise allow a remote user to control your computer.

At the very minimum, I recommend that you install the ebay toolbar and take advantage of ebay's account guard. This feature has a little shield on your toolbar that is green when you are on an official ebay or affiliate (paypal) site but turns gold when you are on any other site. This will be a big help and gives you peace of mind that the ebay site you think you are perusing is actually THE official ebay site.

Good luck and hope this info helps.

 

[wildviking]

Over 5000 transactions on ebay including selling my last Kubota and buying my sons 30000.00 dollar car site unseen and shipping it 2500 miles and and buying my motorhome Via ebay and your telling me its unsafe LOL.
No someone hacked into your computer or you gave out your password to either a fraud email from ebay or paypal and I bet your 2 passwords were the same ..
I have sold many 1000.00 dollar items to people all around the world with no problems.
So please read all the hints and help that ebay and paypal have posted on their websites on how not to get hacked or your passwords stolen and you will not have a problem at all ever with your accounts..

 

[Champy]

FYI - There are many ways to help prevent fraud issues. One way we have used is to always use a single lower limit credit card for our online transactions - but not the same card you use for everything else. I also use a generic Yahoo mail ID for any commercial online transactions...something I can easily kill off if the spam gets too heavy. And change your passwords regularly.

AND (much to my credit card company's dismay), we always request a new card & account number every year. This way whatever happens we have taken some steps to limit our exposure due to someone hacking a store's business system. Plus if those stores keep your card info in their systems, then it is not really good for more than a year at worst (best).

P.S. - I also found that bidding or winning on high dollar items like tractors/cars/ etc.. gets you targeted for more phishing and spams. I had no problems with ebay spoofs until after I bid 16k on a tractor (but lost).

 

[MossRoad]

... one day i tried to log on to my email account and it would not let me it said that my password did not match my user name. it was the same one that i had used for 10 years...

Probably a good idea to change your password every year, at the least. Use a combination of lower case, upper case, numbers and special characters(shift the number keys) and make it long.

 

[Superduper]

Waggy1, you may want to read the following PC World article regarding visitors to google who were infected by malware intended to hack, introduce viruses, spam, and STEAL PASSWORDS from affected computers:

PC World - Hackers Rig Google to Deliver Malware

Again, it is so important to safeguard your computer and online browsing practices against attacks.

 

[gemini5362]

I am going to follow the advice that was given here with some specific advice. ANY TIME let me repeat that ANY TIME you get an email from anyone that has a website such as paypal, aol, your bank etc. You delete that email immediately. Then you go to the website and log in using your user ID and your password. That way you are sure of what you are logging into. I have seen some very very good fake emails. I sometimes quarantine emails then log into the site. If there is nothing on the site to back up the email then I look for the companys security address and forward the email to them so they can investigage. I probably have done a dozen or so of those for AOL and probably a couple of dozen for EBAY. One of the things I dont like about Paypal is that they want my bank account number for their records to become a verified user ( I believe that is the term) I refuse to give that. I use my account until it runs out of buying power then call them up and have them reset it but I wont give out my bank account number to anyone online.

 

[Superduper]

I was originally a paypal verified user exactly because I tied it in with my bank account number. Then a number of transactions deducted from my bank account instead of from my credit card like I requested. I suppose it is possible that I pressed the wrong button but I was certain at the time that I did not. You go through several pages to verify so I suspect that they change the setting on one of the verification pages before I pressed the final confirm button. Like I said, I don't know how it happened because I always prefer to have the amounts deducted from my credit card so that I still have the final option of disputing the transaction if there was a problem. This happened one too many time. If I did not expect it, I could have less in my account than I thought and perhaps bounced a check.

This really made me mad so I deleted my bank account from my profile. Found that it has not diminished my buying power one bit but they did reset my account from verified to not verified. How could I be verified and no longer be verified if they already verified it before? Well, it's not worth dwelling on it anymore because like I said, it has not diminished my ability to purchase anything I want anyhow.

As far as investigating suspicious emails and such, I get so many that I don't even bother anymore unless it looks really well done, in which case I might forward it to that sites security dept. If you do this enough on a regular basis, it could really eat up your day and I'm not going to allow those scammers to steal one more minute of my life unless I have to.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Just so you know, if you delete your Ebay account you can not create another one the next time you want to bid unless you have a new e-mail address. They keep your e-mail address on file and you can only have one account per address. So if you want to delete your account every time just remember, you will need a new e-mail address every time you try to set up a new ebay account to buy or sell.

I have never had any problems with what the OP has complained about and I have been on Ebay for a long time, almost from the beginning.