ARGH! Ebay identity stolen

I've been on line chatting with ebay identity theft all day today, I've had to change all my internet passwords, and change ebay password twice, cause they accessed my account a second time. I don't know what I did to cause this to happen, i"ve received several emails lately that I've won things that I didnt' bid on, and I once clicked on the auction itself to see what it was. I wonder if that made it possible for them to get my account info. all the other emails I received, I just deleted. I quickly emptied my paypal account and changed my paypal , and ISP password. I'll be glad when this gets figured out. It's so frustrating.

Don't ever say it won't happen to you!, I said that, and look what happened.

None the less, Ebay has been very helpful in resolving the problems.

kathy_ann

whenever you get a notice from ebay or paypal send it to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com. they will tell you right away whether it's ligit or not and never never open any of them! good luck! debi

aww Kathy, that stinks, I'm so sorry. I wonder if it was a fake email and then you entered your password to a fake site? I just don't understand why people do things like this.

Rachel

you know Rachel, I just mighthave done that, YOu know, clicked on the item that they said I won, and had to sign in. That's how this all happened. I am so stupid. Lesson learned. !!!!!!!!!!! I have the problem fixed now. I won't be listing anything for a while so I can make sure the problem is fixed.

kathy

You are not stupid!!! These people are very crafty and it is hard for honest folks to even imagine that someone would do some of these things.

Rachel

Happened to us last year - was a real hassle too. We didn t even know about it - ebay contacted us with the info. Thankfully 'they' did not get into our paypal acct so it was ok. Good luck!

i agree, not stupid at all. somebody warned me or i would have been opening all that stuff. how do you know? this just makes my blood boil. unscrupulous people, may they rot!!! debi

You know because there are almost always misspellings, or some fully ridiculous premise, or the e-mail is received to an account that's not even linked to eBay, or the URL they want you to go to does not go to an eBay page (when you run the cursor over it, you can see what the target URL really is despite what they made it look like).
eBay says it will never send you an e-mail asking you to log in, and will never ask you for personal information via e-mail. That's why they have the new "alerts" page.
I agree it must be confusing for most people . . .

Never delete them either. forward them to spoof, but dont even open the mail. sometimes thats enogh for them to access everything on your puter. always put the cursor over the mail and check the real send.
Janett

I'll hav eto remember that janett

thanks


I've had to change my ebay password now 3 diff times, cause every time I go to my ebay the password won't work. and I've had to contact them through live chat to get a temporary password to be able to change it. It's reallly getting aggrivating.

kathy

Kathy,

You should also consider the possibility that you may have inadvertently downloaded 'spyware' onto your computer. Some forms of spyware are pseudo-innocent, and others are not-so-innocent and have the ability to allow a hacker to watch and record all your keystrokes. This would include watching your online banking transactions, online credit card transactions, etc. ...Yeah, it can get real ugly, real quick.

Since you know that your systems has been compromised, at least in the known use of your passwords, I recommend your contacting a professional computer services tech to check and then wipe your hard drive clean of any possible spyware programs. In frankness, having your system cleaned on a regular basis (say once a year) is a sound thing to do, unless you yourself are capable of performing this task religiously.

The good news is that these programs can be found and destroyed. The bad news is that it takes active steps on your part to discover if any exist on your hard drive before you can get them off.

The FBI offers tips on how to prevent internet fraud from happening to you. You can find some information here:
http://www.ifccfbi.gov/strategy/fraudtips.asp

You can also file a complaint to the FBI here: http://www.ic3.gov/
It's worth reporting because while the PayPal and Ebay scams have been around a very, very long time, perhaps eventually, if enough people file complaints, the companies (whose clients/members are targeted on a daily basis) will be held accountable to CLEARLY inform their clients/members of the need to be concerned about phishing scams and teach their consumers how to avoid or prevent it from happening to begin with.

Here you can see the history of 'phishing' (which is what I believe happened to you):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
At this webpage you can learn all about phishing and the response to it.

California recently (last week actually) is the first state to enact a law specifically about phishing. You can write your own State Legislative Representatives and Congressional Representatives to demand they support similar legislation in your own state. By the way, picking up the phone and actually calling your representative is a sure fire way to get their attention. It actually does work and you will hear back from their office.

I wish you luck and am very sorry this happened to you.
Annie

i do a norton virus scan, a spy-bot search and destroy scan, and an ad-a-ware scan once a week. you cannot believe how much stuff gets into your computer on a daily basis. even downloading pictures from DG lets stuff in. you have to run scans and more often than once a year! debi

Welp, let's clear up some miscommunications, as this seemed to hit a sore spot for you somewhere. :-)

I did not say to run virus or other protections once a year. I was gently trying to suggest that if she wasn't sure how to thoroughly clean her hard drive of possible spyware or trojans already existing, she should seek professional help to wipe off her system --and-- in order to keep her system well tuned, (if she wasn't sure how to accomplish this on her own) she should continue to seek professional assistance every year to make certain her system doesn't get reinfected.

If Kathy Ann's computer was infected with spyware (or worse), and she's not a professional tech, and she isn't computer savvy, how is she to even know how to install such preventative measures and execute them properly without assistance from someone to walk her through it all?

The point, was to get her to someone who can assist her in person. Rather than someone recommending more software that could compound her problem exponetially.

Many people do not know that there are also offers of what looks like legitimate software that's "supposed" to remove spyware and like like, which is actually Spyware in and of itself....

What do you think is the better option for her: Telling her to go download something else, when we don't know what her knowledge base is in regard to what she should be wary of --or-- do you think it's a better idea to have a professional show her how to take care of her system properly?

My vote always goes with one-on-one contact with another human so that there are no crossed signals or assumptions made about what someone's computer knowledge level is, thus preventing the possiblity of causing more harm than good. It's worth the investment, particularly when your credit cards could be vulnerable.

Hope this further explanation is helpful to you and clear's up any confusion.
:-)

Warm Regards,
Annie

Annie, no sore spot hit! LOL. just dropping in a little more info. the bold words were used because i just learned how to do it and i thought it was a good place to practice. debi

SO glad I have a Mac!!

darius, you really are everywhere! LOL

Glad to hear...err... read that no body's sore! :oD

good grief, not sore at all. all of your advice was dead on. good thread for everyone to read. debi

Oh it's getting real interesting out there now with the phishing. It's getting so sophisticated IT professionals are actually doing double takes at the stuff coming in

Here's a good example of what we're all in for. Coming soon to a Microsoft system near you:

http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/financialservices/doc/content/news/magazine/1348544103.html

Spear-Phishers are sneaking in
Author: Grow, Brian
Issue date: 11 Jul 2005
Source: BusinessWeek (07/11/05) No. 3942, P. 13

A new type of online scam is "spear-phishing," which instead of sending out millions of fraudulent emails, involves actually targeting recipients. That makes the scheme "far more sinister," says Mark Sunner of MessageLabs. The British email security company was able to catch 612,408 instances of spear-phishing in June, up from 56 in January. Spear phish frequently appear to be sent from a company's own human resources or information technology department. For instance, a June 15 attack at an undisclosed company asked employees to update their user name and password or face suspension. Once hackers get the data they want, they can gain entry into secured networks. Another type of spear phish asks users to click on a link, which deploys spyware that can pilfer data. Last May, authorities in Israel cracked down on several firms that used email resembling vendor queries to download spyware and gather information from competitors. Employees should realize that such email is not coming from inside their company but from outside.

Yes, Annie, I hear what your saying, I have to at least once a year, have my harddrive cleaned,d umped, what ever you want to call it, I screw it up enough that the only way to fix it is to delete the harddrive and start over, LOL, but my computer is a laptop now, brand new, only about a week old, love it. has really good spy ware , adware on it. viris's are up to date too. But give me some time, and I'll mess it up. Will have to take it in sooner or later. Hey, that's the only way I learn is to really mess it up where the computer guy just dumps the hard drive and starts over again.

Oh yes, Got the ebay problem hopefully taken care of, I've logged on suggesfully about 5 times now. Whew! I thought that problem was never going to end.

Thanks you guys for all the words of wisdom and great advice. I hope others can learn from my misfortune so it won't happen to them.

kathy_ann

I'm glad the problem has been straightened out for you with Ebay.
And yep, it's very hard to keep up with all the new viruses,etc., that are out there. You can only hope that your security software programs are aware of what's out there, before it gets to you - and your computer.

Congratulations, by the way, on your new laptop. :o)
Here's a link with information all new computer owners should know.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1375250,00.asp

BTW, (and I find this particularly ironic and humorous) this is a link for PCmagazine. Don't click on any of the ads which offer ad-ware removal tools, trojan horse removal tools, etc. They are simply "content specific" ads and could actually be harmful to your computer. Simply because a link is on a webpage which is giving good information about security practices, doesn't mean the link is safe! Crazy ain't it? :oD

I've never understood why there is not mandatory consumer information provided to new computer owners explaining computer security techniques to them. It would help to alleviate problems from the get-go and there would be a lot more people armed with a way to at least start to protect themselves.

I wish you the best Kathy Ann and hope all your computing from here on out is safe and hacker-free!
Take Care,
Annie

thanks so much Annie

kathy