No it didn't happen to me....but whenever I go into the blogs each day I see that at least one someone is horrified because they have become the victim of an account hijacking.  My goal in this guide is to protect YOU ands help YOU to succeed - because if you succeed, we do as a community. 

When someone's account is hacked, typically their listings are full of items that are not theirs, or most of their real listings are gone or messed up.  The PayPal account is emptied and possibly the related bank accounts are affected, etc.  It makes me sick when this very bad stuff happens to good people like you.  It is incredibly hard to recover from this sort of activity because it takes a long time to put things up on eBay to begin with.  However, the damaged trust is the longest lasting and saddest outcome of all, because the internet is never the same again.  So, this post (and my related guides) are designed to help you avoid that....  So, spend a minute or two here and about 30 more reading my guides on security BEFORE a problem happens, and you will have made a GREAT investment of time.

Hackers find the act of stealing and abusing your account as sport. Of course, it can also be lucrative since they can also empty your PayPal and related bank accounts.  They don't seem to care that some folks here are trying to eek out a living online, and that they are destroying the living and the confidence of innocent people.  Indeed, at times taking food out of the mouths of children -- so don't waste your breath thinking they care -- obviously they don't.  The more upset and screwed you are by what they do, the more they love it.

There are any number of ways hacking is done.  Chief among the way it is done on ebay (and by far the easiest method) are by launching phishing emails.  These emails look like they came from eBay or PayPal and attempt to fool you into giving the hacker your passwords and/or credit card information by providing live links to a bogus websites purporting to be eBay or PayPal.  The best hackers make it all look and sound very convincing. 

It has been said a billion times -- so one more time can't hurt -- eBay and PayPal already have the information they need and they will not send you emails asking for it again - NEVER.  Further, they provide you an eBay tool bar that warns you when you are about to click on a known fraudulent link -- download the safety tool bar and use it -- PLEASE.  Finally, if the email isn't in your email inside eBay's "My Messages" it is NOT real.  SIMPLE AS PIE!

Great -- that is easy and you already knew all that.....right?  So, what if you recognize such emails and never get fooled?  Aren't you 100% safe??   NO. 

There are also programs that can guess at passwords by running in the background trying millions of common ones that people often use.  Far too often, one will work, a child or pets name, etc.  Lazy password protection is a fool's game.  Your passwords should be a nonsensical combination of letters, numbers and special characters (%$#^&*)-- They should be at least 6 digits, but 8 is better. 

There are also programs (called password recorders/sniffers), that come into your computer riding behind a joke or a cartoon.  They are often riding on the back of free internet downloads too, but can also be attached (in hidden form) to emails from someone you know, too through a hijacked Outlook mailing list!  These programs run in the background, recording your keystrokes as you enter passwords.  The program then emails the passwords to the hacker (also in the background and you are completely unaware).  So, as long as the program remains active on your computer, it will continue to send your new passwords to the hacker everytime you log in.   About the only way you can tell when such a program comes in, is that the joke or cartoon takes a bit longer to open then usual.  The difference is evident but not generally picked up by most folks.

What to do?  If you have anti-virus software (McAfee or Norton) -- make sure you do a total system scan immediately.  You may want to call customer assistance to ask what steps you should take to be sure you do not have this program on your machine.   If you happen to know a good programmer they can probably locate and disable it -- do not attempt it yourself.  Worst case, a complete factory reinstall of software (start over) will probably fix it.

Finally -- I know it is expensive to have more than one computer in a home, but your banking and eBay should NEVER be done on a computer that the kids use to game online, download music, programs or games from the internet.  No matter how much we tell them not to do these things, please face it that kids do it.  When they download, they endanger your serious use of the computer for business and financial transactions. 

I have written more than 46 guides to help people online and have such grave concerns for folks who learn the hard way about these things.  Several of my guides deal directly with internet security matters when working online.  My Guides (and those of others) are an essential and totally free education, written for the lay person's consumption.  Drop by and have a read (Pepper120851) -- it will be the best investment of time you can make.  The more you know, the less likely you are to become a victim again or ever.  Remember that these creeps completely rely on your ignorance to succeed in stealing YOUR MONEY , don't give em what they want.

Happy and SAFE eBaying!

Pepper120851