Numerous Hacked Accounts On eBay
As of late I have been hearing more and more about numerous strange events on eBay regarding the misuse of accounts. Several stories posted on digg.com and slashdot.org have discussed just a handful of these events but the problem appears to be ongoing for quite some time. If even half the stories of accounts being hacked are true it would appear that eBay has a major problem which thanks to the holiday season has become almost epidemic. The basic story usually goes like this; a user with good feedback suddenly starts to “screw” people and not ship purchased items, after a short time the account is disabled and nobody seems to know what happened. The buyers never get any refunds from eBay or PayPal and the whole incident seems to erased along with any evidence of it happening on the eBay.com.
Technorati Tags: auctions, ebay, hacked account, security, selling, shopping
As sinister as this sounds, I think the real story here is the simple fact that a large number of accounts are getting hacked into and used for nefarious purposes and eBay is not really acknowledging this as a widespread problem (would not really expect them to). So the big question really is; how are they getting hacked? Several possible explanations seem to be surfacing for the current turn of events:
Spyware – It stands to reason that many of these accounts may have been compromised through the involuntary installation of spyware on a sellers computer system. Of course this is nothing new, except maybe the fact that these sellers are now being targeted specifically for their eBay account information.
Public Logins – Another not-so-well-known way to have your eBay account information stolen is to use your account from a public terminal or over an unencrypted wi-fi connection. Most of the time your connection to eBay is encrypted via SSL but there can be times (such as using a public computer) where you account information is not encrypted and can be seen by others.
Phishing Scams – You should figure that most sells would know enough not to fall prey to these scams but it appears that some people seem to still believe what they read in email.
Something Else? – This is the scary reason. I can’t imagine that all the accounts I have personally seen reported as “hacked” could have all been users who were affected by the first two reasons. Something seems not quite right, too many user accounts have been effected and I would not rule out some type of inside information compromise to even a as-yet unreported exploit to eBay itself. Either way I would be seriously concerned.
Bottom line; if you have an eBay account I would monitor it frequently and if you don’t plan on buying or selling on eBay in the next few months I would simply close the account to avoid even the chance of having your information used to scam someone. If you use eBay daily then you should arm yourself with the latest information on how to prevent your account from being hacked starting with very frequent password changes.
UPDATE: Check out this story on digg about this account (obviously hacked).
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yes i can see what you mean, I for one has been a victim to a keylogger they used to steal my information all the time , so this tells you something dont go into internet cafes and type any credit card detials or if u have an account on a online game etc. runescape,world of warcraft
be safe but remember you will never know if an keylogger is running unless u get the password to set it on
I always get Phisching scams in my inbox. Do they really expect me to just give them my information. I don’t see why people waste their time on scams when they could use that time to make money in an ethical way. I mean, eBay is one of the best ways to make money online in a way that is fun and less difficult than most.
This is very true,
I was just a victim, my account was hacked ( I hadn’t use my account in a month and I had 6 bad reviews) and I strongly believe that was without the use of my password, my account was locked.
After contacting ebay, my account was cleaned up and I was able to change my account’s password. There wasn’t any explanation as the whole contact ebay, was done through chat, as doing through phone is very hard.
The only odd thing I may add as a fact, but it might not be linked, I had just had a bad experience from purchasing a product from someone who had a great score, and all of a sudden they started getting negative reviews from selling items and not shipping them, as If someone took over their account. I got my money back, and that was my last transaction on ebay. Now a month later, the person selling things and not shipping them, is me, someone took over my account. These might just be coincidance or they could be related. I was unable to see the items that I sold, sense they links didnt’ work but the item I purchased was like any other item on the web nothing special about it.
I’m sure it’s not of ebay’s interest that this becomes known to the public. But the problem is out there, and even being treated as something insignicant with the account users, make sure to take action if the same happens to you. It would be nice to know how accounts are being hacked, but that information we might never know.
Yeah this is especially true with online games, people are always trying to phish my account details.
Usually they try and hide trojans in game bots etc.
Not cool at all
We just bid on a $1,600 camera lens yesturday and it turns out that it was from a hacked account. Fortunately ebay was able to cancel the account before I paid them!!
I love a good
Very nice I like
My ebay account was hacked too. This story will reveal the name and email address of the person involved. Well, somebody emailed me about listing an item in ebay and getting $50usd as commission if the item is sold. The item is a MacBook Pro i7 — the latest laptop from apple. Without knowing that this might be a scam, i replied to the email and told her to give in more details..by the way the email add of the scammer is amutus2@gmail.com under the name Angela Mcmutus — so please everyone, if you encounter any mail from this person, delete it right away….. after about 10 mins. from my email asking for more details, i got a quick response from the scammer.. the deal is.. i post her item on ebay.. i get the fees thru my paypal… get my commission of 50usd if the item is sold, plus the ebay seller fees and paypal fees..and the balance should be sent to her paypal account…(she has not indicated her paypal id) .. and the best thing is (this was the primary reason why i agreed to her offer) .. i won’t get to send her the payment until after the buyer has received the item, and after i get a positive feedback from the buyer .. thinking that it was (supposedly) safe since i get the money in my paypal, i emailed her again and said “okay, send me the item description and other details, but it’s late here in my place (11PM) and i don’t think i can still post the items tonight, email me anytime and i will post it tomorrow”…email from her says: “i will give you two items to list first so you could start posting it tonight, i need to dispose asap all the goods in my warehouse, and i got about thousands of different items to list…” then there was the instruction on how much would i list the item, duration of the auction and she also sent an .htm file which is the listing with the specifications, etc. of the item, and also a photo in .jpg format… then i started listing the item…she wants it listed for a 1-day auction at 100usd starting price.. after listing the 2 items…i went to shower..when i came back, and after about 20 mins. my listings have bids on them…my 100usd item rose up to 1,325usd within the hour…so i was then thinking, hmmm..after the items sell tomorrow, i’ll get my 100usd…not bad if i do this everyday, i might get an early retirement.,(haha)…the next morning, when i checked on my ebay account it was already blocked…i have 7 messages then, 4 from ebay and 3 from other ebay users asking about the items…but there was one distinct message i got that made me sure my account was hacked…it came from one bidder and the message was “thank you for the email correspondence” .. so i checked on my sent messages, nothing unusual (the hacker might have deleted the trace) the message came in at 4:45AM my time, while i was busy collecting zzzzzzzzzz’s… so anyway, i contacted ebay asking what happened and after 48 hours, no response yet from ebay.. before this strange listings, i had 6 items listed with buy-it-now, and all my listings got cancelled, and now the buyers are filing cases both in ebay and paypal…i have more than hundred dollars in my ebay sellers fees (i don’t know what else the hacker listed that escalated the fees to that).. reading on the other posts here and in other fora, i guess my account has been hacked…and good thing i have different passwords for my ebay, email and paypal accounts otherwise, going by the stories i’ve read in other websites, the hacker could have changed my email password, or worse, could have accessed my paypal….anyway, pending news from ebay, i guess i will have to wait and will try to update everyone about what would happen…