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ebay/paypal credit scam-victim Psalm71one


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Well, I just made my first purchase from E-Bay this week. I had to register to pay via Pay-Pal, and my account has been hacked!!! We got the bank to close up the account. Eventually we should get the money that is charged against our account back, but in the meantime, we can't pay our mortgage, cuz part of that payment is tied up in that account!!!! ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!

Could I have missed something and Pal-pal isn't as sucure as I thought? The seller has only been registered since March of this year-- do I report him?

I had sent a question to the seller after I won the bid, and they responded, then later I got an email from them titled "Notification for 'questions on my order'" The message said " The message you sent on Tue, 4 May 2004 10:14:30 -0400 regarding "questions on my order" has been displayed by RXXX GXXXXXX" It had an attachment, and I wasn't thinking smart at the moment-- I opened it. It was a word notepad thingy and Norton didn't come up saying it had a virus. (I KNOW NOT TO open attachments from people I don't know! But I'd just purchased something from him and had sent an email, got a response-- ya know?)

Now tonight I got an email with no subject line, no return addy and no message. Has this hacker gotten all my info? name, street address, email, etc?

Edited by Kit Sober
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Psalmie, I have not used paypal before so I can't say how secure they are except it sure don't look like it right now icon_eek.gif

Did you file a police report yet? I'm pretty sure you will need to do that in order for the bank's insurance company to pay up.

A few years ago I handled email for a farm group. Every week I would delete dozens of bank fraud schemes originating from another country quite south and to the right of us.

I imagine if you let ebay and paypal know what happened they will sic their internet detective on this lazy bums arse and make sure he don't mess with you again!

anim-smile.gif

Hi Psalmie icon_biggrin.gif:D-->

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psalmie, I've never had any trouble at all with paypal, it's a secure site... are you sure you didn't put your info out there somewhere else?

nobody can "take" anything from you that you don't authorize through paypal... BUT... there are bad people out there that send out fake ebay and fake paypal emails... in addition to talking to your bank and mortgage people, contact both paypal and ebay (through their sites) and explain to them what went on... they don't want that stuff happening either...

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Yeah, my hubby tried to contact the mortgage company--it was after hours, so he's gonna have to wait til Monday.

How we found out about it was that my hubby had just gotten home from a business trip and was updating our account via our online banking. I'd tild him I'd made a few purchases--grocery store, etc. He came downstairs and said he needed to talk to me-- and he didn't look too happy! He shows me $421 in purchases made online--YIKES!!! (He had printed out the page, so it showed where the purchses were made) I didn't recognize any of these.

Mikey, I hadn't ever signed up for Paypal either cuz I wasn't too sure about em. When I did sign up, it had all sorts of secure-looking stuff, I THOUGHT it would be okay! (And HI! back! nice ta see yer post!! LOL!)

Strange-Dude, people at the bank were saying PayPal is very secure too. They are suggesing the guy I purchased from either is crooked and gave my info to someone or maybe someone has hacked into his (the sellers) files. I did use this same debit card elsewhere last September when I made my homeschool curricula purchases, but this happened the day after my Ebay purchase! (And while at the bank, they checked into our account and there were 7 other purchases pending. icon_eek.gificon_eek.gif

I am going to Ebay and Palpal right after I post this. I do know I've gotten lots of email from ebay and paypla since I registered, maybe it's fake?

What I'm worried about, is, do they have my street address now, too? (since ya have to give this stuff out on paypal)

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Psalmie - file a police report too! That way in case you have to sue somebody to get restitution there is a report on file.

The cops can't do anything...but the report may be valuable later

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Psalm 71 -- I'll be praying for you and this situation. It'll turn out OK. Sounds like you are taking all the "correct" steps to CYA.

7 other purchases pending? icon_eek.gif Again -- Krys is right. Notify the cops too. Everything on "public record" helps your case.

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Psalmie: It may not have been PayPal/eBay, unless you responded to an email that appeared to have been sent by them.

Crooks can copy the graphics off of the eBay and PayPal sites and set up dummy sites that look just like them. Usually they send you an email saying your credit card is about to expire and to follow a link in the email to re-enter your info. Of course, the link takes you to the fake site, not the real one!

If you ever get an email of this nature, DON'T click on any links in it. If you think it could be a legit inquiry, close the email and login to their site by hand (i.e., go to your browser and type in www.paypal.com) and check your account status THERE. If the message was legit, you're now ok. If it was malicious, your account should be in good standing. PayPal and eBay are favorite targets of these crooks, and they're starting to send emails dressed up as coming from your internet service provider's billing department--same scam, same solution.

If it was a check card, someone could have just as easily dumpster-dived a receipt from your local store and used your account that way. Monitor all your cards closely!

Sorry it happened to you. Hope it's the last time!

Zix

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Psalmie Another option is to setup a paypal account to pay for your items you can transfer money to it from your bank then pay for your items with the money. That way only the funds you have in that account are available not your bank balance.

Also ask your bank to cover the mortgage check until you get this cleared up they have a house account that they can do this from. I had a problem awile back where someone added an extra 0 on a check amount $75.00 became $750.00 they just deposited the difference into my account and took it back when the company redeposited it.

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Psalmie, the seller couldn't have gotten your info from PayPal. That's the whole point of PayPal--it serves as sort of a neutral party between you and the seller so that you DON'T have to give sellers your credit card info.

Zixar is probably right. I get all sorts of "spoof" e-mails claiming to be from PayPal, ebay, and ebay buyers/sellers. Often they ask you to verify your info.

One I got claiming to be from ebay looked so legit that you could click on links in the e-mail that made it appear you were really on ebay, right down to being able to search for items.

Ebay has an address where you can send suspected spoof e-mail. I suggest if you haven't deleted ANY e-mails pertaining to ebay and PayPal that you forward them to ebay so they can investigate. But as Zix said, go to ebay with your browser. Don't ever use the links in a suspicious e-mail to get there.

Here's a link to ebay's "Spotting and reporting spoof e-mails" page:

http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial/

and a link for securing your account and reporting account theft:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/isgw...-reporting.html

Good luck!

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I been doing eBay and using PayPal since their inception and haven't had a single glitch. Just never. I've done numerous transactions that were in the several thousands of dollars as well.

I think the rip-off artist has gotten to you through some other venue. Do explain the situation to your lenders and to eBay, though. Uncertainty is the worst for any financial institution. So if they're at least aware of what's going on, that can go a long way towards smoothing out the difficulties...

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Groannnn, I've learned a lot in the last day.

I did recieve an email that was from PayPal (I thought) and I was supposed to click on the link-- it said my registration was almost completed. I clicked on the link, got to the site and logged in and then I was "verified". I think this was also where I was to choose a security question and answer--two of them. (And if memory serves, I DID have to log in with member name and password).

I can't find this email now, though. Weird huh? But maybe not, I had just changed all the passwords on any type of account I have, (Email, forums, etc) and used the same one on every one of them. (I've always had different ones and it was getting confusing to remember)

Zix, it IS possible it was just someone picking up my visa/debitcard number anywhere. But this timing is too coincidental, and I am always careful with all my receipts. (my hubby now does the finances and he handles things very differently--since we have online banking, he doesn't keep receipts and throws them in the trash--no shredder. I've never been able to convince him to do differently). But I still think it was stolen via the internet--the timing is way too coincidental.

WhiteDove, that is the way my checking accounts at this bank are set up. One for all our bills, having no access to a debit card in any way. The other one, where the debit card is linked, is household money, like groceries, etc--and now this Ebay purchase. It just so happens, that this time, I made the deposit, cuz my hubby was out of town on a business trip. I deposited his whole paycheck in that account, out of habit, cuz when I did the bills, we didn't have the second account yet.

I sat up late last night, first reading at Ebay about all the ways spoof emails can come. Then I typed out a form telling them about this. I haven't recieved a response. Then I went to PayPal, read a little there, and started their form. By the time I finished the form, and went to send it, my log-in session had expired. I had to type it all out again.

It happened again. Back to slow-type-hunt-and-peck. Then it rejected my form cuz it said I had something like an accent over and email, please check your letter and resubmit. I hadn't saved it.

This time I typed it in Word. And pasted--and it rejected me. So, revise and submit, again and again. and again. ARRRRRGGGHHHHH! I felt like I HAD to submit that form last night, but I also was supposed to get up this morning at 6am because we were having a yard sale and I still needed to set up.

I finally typed out a message with no punctuation marks asking for another way to contact them because I had tried at least 10 times and it rejected everything until I used NO PUNCTUATION!

Now I am really sleepy, can't get a nap cuz we are supposed to go to a picnic at 4 pm. I'm just sick about this whole thing and my hubby isn't talking to me right now. And when we arrive at this picnic, we put our "Twig Faces" on-- isn't that sweet? icon_rolleyes.gif:rolleyes:--> icon_frown.gif:(-->

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Oh, and the bank never promised we'd get all the money back. They just said we PROBABLY would get it all back. This is a Credit Union and it was a debit card with a Visa thingy on it--as far as I understand, those are not insured like a regular credit card. So I just gave some stranger one week's pay--oh, NO PROBLEM!!! icon_mad.gif

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((((((((psalmie))))))))))

I'm so sorry this has happened to you!!! It sounds like a real nightmare!!!

I would also contact the police...I'm thinking maybe they can do their own investigation and find out where the money from your bank went to. Plus, they would have to fill out a report and when things are found out you have the report from the police to fall back on.

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sounds like you got one of those stealth viruses that people use to steal your info. change all of your passwords immediately, and write to ebay, paypal, & any other place money has been withdrawn from. if you were not the ones who made the purchases your money should be refunded with no questions asked. it might affect your ebay feedback rating as many sellers do not believe that these things occur (what idiots really) but they do and people do steal others accounts to ring up their charges.

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okay, I have changed my passwords, deleted my debit card from paypla's site and called PalPal to file a report with them. It really looks like this did not involve my paypal account. The guy even looked at all of the history of anytime anyone logged in to Paypal and it is all from my isp.

Still, somehow someone got my debit card number and used it. I went to the site that these three purchses (The ones that went through) were made at. It looks like it's all software-type downloads, (The site is Fasthosts) so there will be no "ship to" address--I don't know if this hacker can be tracked-- anybody know? Maybe with the other pending purchases there was a ship to address, and they can be found that way? I don't have any of those written down anywhere, and will have to wait til the bank opens tomorrow to ask. I remember two of the purchases were for yahoomail.

I thought about contacting Fasthosts and telling them an unauthorized purchase was made at their site using my card, but would that jepordize anything "official" people may need to do?

One more question, and I am going to ask this down in the tech forum also. How can I know if I have some sort of worm or trojan horse? Especially since I am hearing that Norton does not always catch these, nor Spybot, adaware, etc? I've run full scans and updates with both Norton and Spybot--including immunizing. I did that Friday night. I didn't run Adaware cuz I thought that is supposed to catch the same things Spybot did. HELP!

Oh, hubby's talking today now! LOL-- he gets so stressed that he crawls inside of himself--he's not mad at me about this, just mad! LOL

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Tom, you do know yer talkin to an airhead, don't you? icon_biggrin.gif:D-->

What do you mean? Isn't that what I did when I went to the bank and told them these were unauthorized purchases? They had us fill out a form where we wrote down these particular charges and say they were not authorized by us.

If I need to do anything else, lemme know!

I have listed on a sheet of paper everything we have done, including names of people we spoke to, etc. WE are going into the police station to make the report, cuz we didn't want a police car shoing up in front of our house on Mother's Day! LOL!

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OK then... yes, that's it, you've done it... the bank should restore the money to your account... sooner or later... it's up to the folks "accepting" the card to insure that the purchaser is an authorized user... if they didn't, it's their loss... your inconvenience...

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