Nasty eBay Identity Theft

I'm posting this here as the best place to get maximum coverage.

I thought it couldn't happen to me, but it has. I received an email from eBay this morning telling me that my account was suspended as someone had hacked into it, changed the destination email address and advertised, using my eBay account, tickets for the soccer final in Athens on 23rd May. This listing has now been cancelled by eBay.

Being the cautious type, I went round the houses (i.e. logging into the known ebay URL) and yes, it was true. Someone had done this.

Now I was witness to the other side of the activity a couple of years back when someone bid for tickets for another final and eventually realised that named seller had no idea he was apparently offering the tickets. By this time his money had gone (Western Union is the favoured financial route for this, apparently) and the guy whose identity had been appropriated had to move out of his house due to burly gentlemen turning up demanding to know the whereabouts of their tickets.

If you have an eBay account in the UK, take a couple of minutes to check your listings.

Paul

(edited to change subject line)

[Neil]

My brother was on the other end when he bought something from an account that had being hacked [V]

I have never used the site myself, but guess you can't really blame eBay, its the criminals who are doing the activity, who will exploit whatever/whoever they can to steal from people, this is just another way of doing it.

[Bazz]

eBay and their banking arm PayPal tell a good story when it comes to fraud and the protection that their sites provide. In truth they could do an awful lot more to protect their customers but frequently it is not in their financial best interests to stamp out, or re-act too quickly to, fraudulent activity.

According to quite a few investigations, some of the biggest perps are eBay PowerSellers and provide significant funds to eBay.

I have been ripped off over a fake product and despite eBay having pulled the listing and advised me that I need not pay, because i already had paid they upheld the seller and I did not get a refund - this despite a letter from the genuine manufacturer confirming the good were a fake copy.

"Caveat emptor" applies in large amounts when dealing with these sites!

[Pete]

My eBay account was hacked a couple of months ago, but I spotted it myself very quickly, and one phone call to eBay got it resolved in about 10 minutes.

To be fair eBay did spot it and initiate the corrective action, but coming on top of a recent 2.5k misuse of one of my cc's (again spotted and corrected by the card company) I'm beginning to wonder about going back to postal orders...

Paul