Ebay account hijacked, but well done to Ebay.

Posted by: Tony Lockhart on 10 February 2009

I have my hotmail sent on to my mobile phones email, and on Friday received an email telling me that I had successfully changed my Ebay password. Mmmm, strange, I thought, don't remember doing that.

So I went to the PC to check what had happened.... can't log in to Ebay, incorrect password. Oh dear. Then another email from Ebay, a pair of ladies boots listed by me! Eeek, this looks serious.

I checked my hotmail. No emails from Ebay! WTF is going on??

So, I had a quick go at resetting my Ebay password.... no joy. Followed their help next. I ended up in a 5 minute queue for an 'on-line chat' help desk. While waiting it advised me to change my Hotmail password. Mmmm, good idea!

Got through to the help chat.... yes, my Ebay account had been hijacked. AND, the criminal had got into my Hotmail and blocked emails from Ebay! 2 minutes later everything was sorted. All potential charges returned.



A big well done to Ebay. My faith is restored.



Tony
Posted on: 10 February 2009 by scottyhammer
Tony,
Glad this problem was resolved for you but these kind of incidents really put me off fleabay.
Posted on: 10 February 2009 by Tony Lockhart
If it hadn't been for the speed and ease at which this was sorted, I'd have ditched my 100% positive feedback and left forever. Over the years though, the 'shopping' experience on Ebay has been better than at my local Hi-fi shop, Audiofile in Bishop's Stortford. Nobody on Ebay has treated me like an idiot!

If the Ebay hijacking happens again I may well involve the rozzers.

Tony
Posted on: 10 February 2009 by markfs
Mmmm, but how did the ladies boots fetishist scumbag get your passwords?
Have you checked your computer Tony?
Posted on: 10 February 2009 by Tony Lockhart
The PC seems fine, thanks. My Hotmail looks untouched, with the adding of Ebay to blocked senders the only sign of what happened.
On another forum I go to, a few of the guys have had this over the last year or so and have all been impressed with Ebay's actions. Considering the number of transactions taking place and the number of people I know that use Ebay it doesn't seem to be a huge problem.
Ebay now have my mobile number and will call me if anything unusual occurs with my account.

I haven't a clue how they got hold of the passwords, but I probably need to tighten my internet password security. Thankfully my Ebay and Hotmail passwords were/are unique.

Tony
Posted on: 11 February 2009 by Naim User - Graeme
quote:
better than at my local Hi-fi shop, Audiofile in Bishop's Stortford.


Spill the beans Tony! Our (short) experience with Audiofile (Cambridge) led us to spend £7800 on a our system elsewhere! We found them a tadge unfriendly to be honest.

Glad to hear ebay sorted this quickly. Out of over 60 transactions we have only had one problem with a seller.
Posted on: 11 February 2009 by Tony Lockhart
The problem was, thankfully, nothing to do with Naim AUdio equipment. We bought a Loewe LCD TV that had a habit of switching itself off. We were quite ok about it, trusting that they would sort it out.
They replaced the first with another. Same problem. Sales guy came round, looked for IR transmitters (seriously) and installed an ugly great big UPS. Same problem.
Now if it was just a matter of turning the damned thing back on again we could maybe have stuck it out, but on switching on again, there would only be about half a screen's worth of picture... the rest was black! Now how that can be our fault I just don't know. I even emailed them a video I shot with my phone.
In the end we received a full refund, and instead of a £1500 32" Loewe, we have a £750 Panasonic 32" that is better in every way.

Which is nice.

At the end of the month we're moving from Stansted to Swaffham Bulbeck. Our nearest Naim dealer will be Audiofile in Cambridge. I can only see our boxes being serviced, not replaced thankfully.

I might even take them on a trip to Derbyshire... the air is nice and refreshing there! Winker


Tony
Posted on: 11 February 2009 by Exiled Highlander
Tony

You really need to figure out how the hijacker got your password foe Ebay. Does you password meet good security standards - include mixed case and numbers and characters?

If it doesn't then it should.

A number of years back I had an NT admin run a crack attack on the US domain of a large company and found 1500 or so user passwords were set to....you guessed it password. We got them to change their policies after that!

Cheers

Jim
Posted on: 12 February 2009 by Tony Lockhart
Jim,

Ebay sent me a link while I was in the chat queue. This link was a quick tutorial on security. I had been a little slack over the years, and so my password wasn't as good as it should be. That's sorted, but I have trouble remembering the bloody thing!
I'm wondering whether someone managed to grab my password while I was logging in on my P990i mobile phone. If that's likely I won't be doing that again.
For me the upshot is that I haven't lost anything except a few minutes of my time, and I've learned a lesson. Hopefully others will take the advice on the password containing a mix of numbers, cases and characters.

Tony
Posted on: 12 February 2009 by Howlinhounddog
quote:
I'm wondering whether someone managed to grab my password while I was logging in on my P990i mobile phone. If that's likely I won't be doing that again.

That sounds a likely candidate.