So, here's a little heads-up for those of you out there - of which I'm sure there are many
- who have an eBay account.
As you may have read, my email account got hacked on Friday. (I got it back this morning - yay!
) Furthermore, my eBay account also got hacked. And that's all - NOT my credit cards, NOT my Paypal, nothing. Just my email and eBay accounts (which, incidentally, had the same password. Genius. Needless to say, they now have completely disparate, random, convoluted number-and-words string passwords.)
As it turns out, it was some Chinese scam - you may have seen items listed from Hong Kong, etc - they usually are from a "company" or seller that has little or no feedback - but many, many items. The listings are impressive - they've paid for plenty of pictures, and bold text, and highlights and gallery fees and whatnot. Mmmm. This is because they have stolen someone's eBay account and used their "credit card details on file" to OPEN NEW ACCOUNTS AND LIST THESE ITEMS. Thus, charging the listing fees to the hapless hackee. Bar stewards.
Mercifully, because this was attached to my main (geekily obsessively frequently checked) email account, I spotted it immediately and notified both MSN and eBay. eBay were a bunch of
useless idiots in as much as they suggested I email them from my email addy listed to my account (I CAN'T, IT WAS STOLEN - CAN'T YOU LOSERS READ?!
), and actually sent an email containing a password re-set link..... TO MY HACKED ACCOUNT.
Absolutely DIVINELY inspired, that one. <sigh> Still, to be fair, they shut down the hacker's listings immediately and have refunded me all of their incurred fees before they ever had a chance to hit my card. In all, I guess I'm satisfied with their response.
However! I wanted to alert y'all to this - I have never, EVER responded to a phishing email. I am technologically savvy enough to spot them a mile off. I don't always report them, but I NEVER click on ANY links in any emails from any senders. My passwords for most things are different - NOW my passwords for EVERYTHING are different, and even my secret question answers ridiculously encoded. I am very concerned that this can happen WITHOUT you being daft enough to be caught by a phisher. And it's not viral either - I have full anti-virus and firewall software, ranks in the top three in reviews, newly installed and updated and it keeps me safe. I don't download from strange sites. I rarely download at all, in fact. And yet these scammers still found me, found a way to break my passwords, and if I hadn't responded so fast would have cost me £150 (roughly $300) in eBay fees in that ONE DAY that they had my account.
I'm suspecting it may be because my eBay account has lain dormant for a little while - I haven't sold anything since 2005, and haven't bought anything for a good few months. I can't imagine how they found me, but they found me.