Please be smart when using Ebay

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

One main thing is to be sure to do is have your password on Ebay different than your paypal account. Also the password you use on both Ebay and on Paypal should not be the same as what you might use on other sites especially banking or Stock trading sites.

Never click on an Ebay or Paypal link no matter how curious you are. They can get a lot of information from you just by clicking on that link. When you get an email from Ebay first verify that it is from Ebay by forwarding it to spoof@ebay.com and if you receive one from Paypal forward it to spoof@paypal.com

You should try to check into your Ebay account as often as you can to be sure there are not auctions set up that you did not do. I lucked out once because I caught fraudulent use a half hour after they stole my ID and was able to stop them dead in there tracks.

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

Thanks for the reminder.

It is easy to become lazy and use the same password over and over again, then forget about the risks involved.

[arlene22 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close arlene22]

A cautionary tale...

Frank gives good advice. He's bringing it up now because he knows it happened to me on Friday.

I never thought my Ebay account would be hijacked because I am very careful not to click on links from emails. In fact, when I got an email from Ebay saying that my email address had been changed, and that if I hadn't authorized it I should log in and let them know, I almost wrote it off as phishing. It was real, though. So I logged into Ebay (not from the email) and found that some eejit from Louisiana changed my email address to some freaky spammer email address so I wouldn't see all the bid confirmations, and within minutes, I was the proud owner of 11 sony playstations.

It took me all day to deal with it, but Ebay finally cancelled all the auctions.

Lessons learned: 1) My password was too easy-- a combination of two words that are found in the dictionary, with no numbers. I have since changed it to something much harder. 2) Do not ignore emails from Ebay that have both your Ebay name and your real name at the top. 3) I lost valuable time by submitting the safeharbour form which says someone will back to you in 48hours. I thought that was the only way to communicate with Ebay. Eventually I discovered there is a "live chat" feature. Once I got through there, they fixed everything. 4) Even after they say they've fixed everything, do an advanced search on your username as bidder to see if there are still auctions that you "won". I found 3 that Ebay missed. It took a total of 3 live chat sessions to fix everything. 5) Don't use an easy password hint question. That could have been my problem too. "What's your dog's name: Buddy" (duh wouldn't take too long to guess that one...

Whew! Don't let this happen to you!

[jackio Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close jackio]

Wow, Arlene, sorry for your ordeal. Thank goodness it all worked out. Thanks to you and Frank for the good advice.