[shuttertalk]

I woke up this morning to find this email in my inbox:

Dear Julian Tan (xxx@xxx.com),

We have ended the following listing(s) on your account as they appear to have been listed by a third party without your authorization:
8934684786 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934684619 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934683757 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934683445 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934682830 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934682319 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934681301 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934681050 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934680881 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934680323 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934679469 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934679166 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934678666 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934678203 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934678008 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934678006 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934676820 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934675784 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934675170 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934685618 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934673796 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934673324 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934673012 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934672966 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934671876 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934671368 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934670543 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934670192 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934669732 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934669143 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934668810 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934668281 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934668001 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934667474 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934666864 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934666620 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934666509 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934666492 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934665293 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934664667 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry
8934684995 Authentic TIFFANY & CO. Jewelry



Do not respond to this email, as your reply will not be received. You will be sent a separate notice detailing the action taken. Please refer to that notice for additional information related to this action, including steps you can take to restore access to your eBay account.

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

Regards, Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay Inc

I hadn't become a jeweller overnight so I immediately thought it was spam. However, I did all the checks and found that they checked out. There was also another email:

Dear cuteseal (xxx@xxx.com),

It appears your account was accessed by an unauthorised third party. To protect your account from further unauthorised use, we have temporarily restricted your account from sending email through Ask Seller a Question or Contact eBay Member, listing and bidding on items. Additionally, the email address on your account may have been tampered with, which is why you may not have received an email about any unauthorised activity. We have taken steps to secure your eBay account.

If your account was used in any unauthorised activity, such as listing items or placing bids, this activity has been cancelled without incident. Any associated fees were credited to your account. We assure you that your credit card information is stored on a secure server and cannot be viewed by anyone.

To regain control of your account, please follow the steps outlined below:

1. Change the password on your personal EMAIL account to verify that it is secure and cannot be accessed by anyone other than you.

2. Click the "Forgot your password" link on the eBay Sign In page and change your password using the instructions provided.

3. Once you have taken steps to secure your email and create a new eBay password, please contact our Live Help team for assistance removing the bidding and listing restriction from your account. You can reach the Account Theft Live Help team through eBay.com by taking the following steps:

- Click on the "Security Center" link found at the bottom of most eBay.com pages.

- Click on the "eBay Account Protection" link in the Online Security Resources box.

- This will take you to the help page entitled Securing Your Account and Reporting Account Theft.

- Scroll down the help page to the section entitled Contacting eBay.

- Click on the "Live help" link.

Programs that block pop-up windows may prevent you from accessing Live Help. If this is the case, you may be able to temporarily disable the program or configure the program to allow pop-ups on the eBay site in order to use Live Help. Additionally, Live Help may not work with some Web browsers. If you continue to experience difficulties, you may be able to use Live Help by updating your browser to the most recent version or by using a different program to access the eBay site.

If you are unable to contact eBay through Live Help after taking these steps, please respond directly to this message to request assistance. We will contact you by email after we have received your response.

Please be aware that there may be a delay in responses sent by email. In order to handle your concern as quickly and efficiently as possible, we encourage you to contact us through Live Help if you are able to do so.

Regards,

Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay Inc

Looks like someone had hacked and taken control of my account and then used it to post bogus listings, most likely in the hope of getting people to send them money and not delivering the goods, and then leaving me with the blame. It's quite disconcerting actually, and I will now have to change the passwords on all my email and internet accounts just to be safe. I'm just glad that the ebay authorities picked it up in time, and that no honest people were scammed into buying.

My password had also been reset, which I presume was to lock the hackers out of my account once it had been detected. So I retrieved my new password, logged in and again, I saw these notices in my account, so again, I know they weren't scam or phishing emails. My feedback rating wasn't afftected though, and they said that they would refund any fees incurred. I must keep watch on my credit card though... just in case they managed to get a hold of the details...


Anyway, I've never been hacked before, but have learnt my lesson - must make my passwords more secure (was pretty secure as is), try not to use the same ones across my different accounts and services, and possibly change them more often.


Anyone got any horror stories or tips to share?

[Pat]

My account was also hacked and someone was using it to sell mobile telephones, fortunately one of the would be buyers emailed me with a query and I was able to let him know of the scam, I was able to put a stop on the account and notify ebay. I would be very wary of using ebay again.

[EnglishBob]

Scary stuff.

Wonder how they got your password or access to your acounts.

[Toad]

so...what is your password, anyway, Jules?

[shuttertalk]

so...what is your password, anyway, Jules?

It's ********

[shuttertalk]

Scary stuff.

Wonder how they got your password or access to your acounts.

Me too...

Good cnet story here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-868278.html?tag=cd_mh-

Apparently ebay don't implement a lockout after x unsuccessful attempts, which allows hackers the opportunity to guess the password via brute force...

Mine was a combination of letters and numbers (a word with numbers on the end). I guess in hindsight, that would be pretty weak and easy to hack... most new passwords that I create have digits and symbols in between the letters to make it harder to hack.

[Petographer]

Scary! :o I'll be changing my password. I recieved an e-mail from someone pretending to be paypal asking for me to update my cedit card info. It said my paypal services were suspended because of security reasons.

Suggestions from me are not to follow links in e-mails to log into your account. Also take a look at the return address of the e-mail. Change your password on a regular basis.

[shuttertalk]

Good advice Peto... I get those all the time and never, never click on any of the urls. If ever you're worried, open up a browser and type in the address of the known site and go from there.

[smarti77]

Thanks for the warning. Its time to change my passwords...

[Schellamo]

I've just signed up for internet banking, and now I'm getting emails from all different banks asking me to verify my account details (funnily enough, they haven't actually sent one from my bank yet LOL) Although i know its a scam, I do worry for people who don't realise. Some of them are quite tricky, with websites set up and everything (although a quick google search shows that its not the same adress as the genuine one) and a proper sounding email adress, while others come from 'Doris Burda' LOL
Makes me wonder though!

[wulinka]

scary!

Funnily I had an email yesterday from paypal about some suspicious activity on my account. since I haven'
t been using it, i went ahead and deleted the entire account.
but seems like there is a lot of crop going on out there!

uli

[shuttertalk]

I've changed my passwords now, and now also use different password sets for my mail accounts, my financial type accounts and also just general internet accounts. It does make it hard to remember though!!