Hijacked Ebay User ID - How to get help

It happened to me and it could happen to you too!

My Hijacking experience

I thought I was pretty EBAY savvy. All phishing attempts have always been phoiled :)

That is, until last weekend. I had an item I was selling for my husband and the bidding reached $455 and had 7 hours to go. I received a legitimate "ask seller a question" from a user which raised my eyebrows, not with suspicion, but with curiosity.

Here is the EXACT question I received

I want to know if this is the same item with the item listed at this address: (then it gave a link to an ebay about me page)  

I didn't know what to make of it, or what they were talking about, so I thought I would take a look at what this was so I could answer the question to the best of my knowledge. I didn't even click on the link. I'm too smart for that, right? Instead, I copied it, and then pasted it into another window and  was immediately taken to the ebay sign in page, which I dutifully did... Nothing happened.

So, I clicked on the "respond now" button and replied to the person who asked me the question, that I had no idea what they were talking about. End of story, right? Oh, how wrong I was.

Within 10 minutes, I was receiving "responses" from other ebay users to a  question that I had supposedly sent to them... People were confused and/or insulted. Since I hadn't asked any questions to all of these people about their various auto parts, I became increasingly alarmed.

I immediately e-mailed one of them and told them I hadn't asked any questions and asked if they could let me know what my question to them was. This kind person sent me my question, which was EXACTLY the same question I had received.

OH, OH! Someone was in my account. I then saw before my very own eyes, all of the bids being canceled on one of my auctions that was up to $455 and only had 7 hours to go. As soon as the bids were canceled, someone with 0 feedbacks bid on it for $9.99. I immediately tried to stop the auction, but EBAY will not allow you to end an auction that has less than 12 hours to go.

I was in a panic. I e-mailed Ebay Trust and Safety.. I tried in vain to find some way to contact Ebay with no success. I did have the presence of mind to hurry up and change my password. Of course this didn't help me for the time being, because the hijacker was already signed in to my account using my user id to wreak havoc.

I learned that in this situation, that there is NO easy way to contact Ebay, and that my computer which is connected to high speed cable extremely slow when I am in a panic...

Who?

I have no idea who did this. The person who sent me the question to begin with, had their user id hijacked as well, so they didn't do it. My best guess would be the person who immediately placed a $9.99 bid on my item as soon as the rest of the bids were canceled, but again, that was only a guess, because not only were they a zero feedback userid, they were out of the US.

What I did wrong

Pretty easy one to figure out. I "signed in" to a bogus ebay page. As soon as I signed in, the perps had my user ID and Password. As soon as they had my user id and password, they were able to sign in to my account, which they did immediately. They then used my user ID to send the same question with the link embedded to scores of other ebay users (many of which also fell for it)

I really fell for this one. The message was in my "My Ebay". I didn't click on the link itself. I thought I was safe.

What to do if your account is Hijacked

• Change your password immediately

• Make sure there is no buying activity in your account

• Check your paypal account to make sure it has not been compromised

• Contact Ebay - 1-866-322-9103

WHERE TO GET HELP IMMEDIATELY

As I mentioned, in my panic, I couldn't find help. I blasted off  e-mails to trust and safety. I tried unsuccessfully to find a link the "live help" from ebay. I tried the help screens only to be confronted with pages upon pages of reading material and many many links to other help pages. There is a link on ebay's home page for "Live Help". This is a general Help chat session to help users with buying and selling questions, and it was unavailable because of "high volume". In desperation I went to the Chat boards and asked if anyone know how to contact ebay... Someone answered me immediately and provided to me the link for Ebay "LIVE HELP For HIJACKED ACCOUNTS". This live help chat session is only if your account has been hijacked, and they respond immediately.

HERE IS THE LINK:

 ???????????

Well, this is very interesting.... While writing this guide, I tried to insert the live help chat link and this guide will not allow me to insert it. It says that I am not allowed to put non ebay links in to the guide. (I thought it WAS an ebay link) I am going to try and just type it out and you may have to copy and paste it. Here goes: .................. OK, this is even more weird. I typed out the link, and when I preview the guide, it comes up blank... Ebay will not allow me to put the link on this guide. OK, my only choice is to put the link on my "about me" page. you can get there by following this link:

Shelley's Poppy Garden

Sorry for the inconvenience. This is what I meant when I said that ebay doesn't make it easy to get live help.

Here is another way to get to the Link for the Live Help... click the following  Link for Ebay. It will take you to one of the help screens...

Ebay Account Theft Reporting

Don't try to wade through it all... Just go to the very bottom of the page. At the very bottom of the page you will see a microscopic icon for Live Help. Click on it and it will take you to the LIVE HELP for HIJACKED accounts. This is the ONLY way to get to it.

WHY?

There are a couple of reasons people hijack accounts. One is for monetary gain. While the perp is signed in to your account, they can immediately go to your personal information page. From this page, they can get your e-mail address and once they have that, they can go to Paypal. If you have used the same password for ebay and paypal, they now have your paypal password.

NEVER NEVER use the same password for EBAY, PAYPAL and E-MAIL!

The other reason is for sport. I can see no other reason that this person would go in to my account, and cancel all the bids on my auctions. (Unless the person with zero feedbacks who then bid $9.99 thought they could now get my item for cheap was the one who did it)

They then sent many messages from my account. Many were meant to inflame other users. The only reason I can think of is that it was for fun (and for harvesting other user id/passwords)

What I learned

• It can happen to anyone
• When you are stressed and in a hurry, it is hard to find the help you need on Ebay
• The perps keep coming up with new and more sophisticated ways to trick you
• Sign in to Ebay and then DO NOT sign in again from any link you have opened
• Do NOT use the same passwords for various services
• Save the link I provided for the LIVE HELP in a folder or on your desktop for easy access
• The Ebay Live Chat person will probably want to call you. When they do, SAVE THEIR PHONE NUMBER FROM THE CALLER ID!

I hope you found my experience helpful and that you will give it a YES vote.