bruin70 said:
chris,,,explain the hijacked account. i know what you mean but what and how are they doing it, exactly?
The scam:A scammer gets your password and logs into your E-Bay account. They immediately change your password and e-mail contact information with E-bay.
They are then free to sell under your name and get e-mail addresses from people who contact them. They send out a note like you saw above trying to sell the cue. Usually money is wired to an account, and it's over with. They also keep copies of all e-mails and screen names they are contacted by.
Later, they will send you a convincing E-Bay notice in an effort to get you to sign in on a dummy screen. Then they have your password too.
The Protection: E-bay immediately notifies you that your contact information has been changed. This notice goes to your old e-mail address. This is why so many of these compromised account auctions are ended so quickly. A highly active e-Bayer will find out right away and notify e-bay.
How your account is compromised: They can get your password a variety of ways. In Europe, they were hacked into and thousands of screen names and passwords were stolen. This was the bane of E-bay for a long time.
Mostly, however, its the result of a phony e-mail. They look official and much of the screen is really E-Bay stuff and they ask you to sign into your account because a balance is due or to update your credit card information. Since they already have your screen name and e-mail address, the "sign in" just generates an e-mail, back to them with your password, and tells you that the systems are down, try again later.
If you get on e-bay they have excellent tutorials on avoiding these scams. My rules of thumb are, never sign into any account through an e-mail and to run antivirus software on a regular basis. I also change my passwords regularly. Beware contacts encouraging purchases outside of e-bay and all second chance offers.
I recently picked up on some "shill bidding" on an item I won (but did not go through with the purchase) and notified e-bay. They cancelled the seller's accounts and two others within a few days. They found out my high bid by outbidding me. Then they retracted the bid and bid again just under mine.
Chris
).
. I am an idiot in that case. I assure you, Duke, no offense intended