eBay account hacked. What to do?

therivierakid

Not mine, but my dad's. At the start of August he noticed that a large sum of money had been taken from his credit card (via Paypal) for a large value purchase on eBay. He had no emails saying that he had bought anything and the purchase had been marked as hidden in his eBay account.

He tried contacting the buyer, eBay and Paypal to see what they could do, but to no avail. So he contacted his CC provider and they refunded the money. Shortly after he closed his Paypal account.

I had a look at his eBay account with him this evening and I noticed that the item was heading for an address in N. Ireland (not where he lives). We noted down the address. I was also slightly suspicious of the buyer's account - registered as a business seller since the middle of 2015 but only 26 feedback. She didn't seem to understand what my dad had put in messages and was more intent on insisting that the buyer paid the return postage (as if my dad had received the item and wanted to return it).

So is there anything else he could/should do? I have suggested closing his eBay account but is there anything more?

robatwork

I would contact the police/actionfraud too. You will never hear anything back though, at least I never have from several filed reports.

soolin

therivierakid wrote: »

Not mine, but my dad's. At the start of August he noticed that a large sum of money had been taken from his credit card (via Paypal) for a large value purchase on eBay. He had no emails saying that he had bought anything and the purchase had been marked as hidden in his eBay account.

He tried contacting the buyer, eBay and Paypal to see what they could do, but to no avail. So he contacted his CC provider and they refunded the money. Shortly after he closed his Paypal account.

I had a look at his eBay account with him this evening and I noticed that the item was heading for an address in N. Ireland (not where he lives). We noted down the address. I was also slightly suspicious of the buyer's account - registered as a business seller since the middle of 2015 but only 26 feedback. She didn't seem to understand what my dad had put in messages and was more intent on insisting that the buyer paid the return postage (as if my dad had received the item and wanted to return it).

So is there anything else he could/should do? I have suggested closing his eBay account but is there anything more?

Sorry , can you clarify who is the buyer and who the seller. You say something was bought , but mentioned that you then contacted the buyer- was that the scammer you contacted ? You then say the buyers account is registered as a business , is that actually the seller or are you the seller?

Either way, if someone has hacked both an eBay and a PayPal account then they probably have access to your emails as well, especially as you had no notification of the purchases and didn't see the change of address confirmation that eBay and PayPal send when you change things. Having access to your email account means this could potentially be serious as they could have access to bank and other shop sites. Closing an account might deal with an immediate issue but doesn't really address the issue of being insecure.

Get over to the tech board here on MSE and get them to talk your father through s proper scan and deep clean, find the virus and deal with it, then re change passwords to every single thing you do online. Then perhaps if your father is not computer savvy , guide him through basic security , phishing mails etc to stop this happening again.

soolin

Also, closing the eBay account isn't easy as it doesn't just close overnight, whilst there are any transaction within the past 180 days the account stays open, so unless you sort this out with eBay there could be further issues.

As it stands, and assuming your father was the buyer (and apologies if I am confused) then anything bought by the scammer with your fathers details could come back and cause issues as doing a chargeback through the bank hasn't sorted the eBay/PayPal issue. All that has happened is that PayPal have claimed back the amount from the seller who is now out of pocket through no fault of their own. A regular seller will probably understand how to prevent PayPal taking that money back from them, but a new seller may well now be in financial,loss and be looking at your father as the scammer.

therivierakid

Sorry... the original message was rathe confusing. It should have read that he tried contacting the seller and that I was suspicious of the seller's account.

Can someone tell me the best way to contact eBay about something like this? I will also get my dad to report it to actionfraud.

Thanks.

soolin

therivierakid wrote: »

Sorry... the original message was rathe confusing. It should have read that he tried contacting the seller and that I was suspicious of the seller's account.

Can someone tell me the best way to contact eBay about something like this? I will also get my dad to report it to actionfraud.

Thanks.

It is unlikely the seller is involved in the scam, nothing on your op suggests that and there is very little point in this from a sellers point of view.

You really need to be tackling the main issue of someone apparently having access to your father's email.

If you go through contact us on the eBay help pages you will eventually get contact details. However as you are perhaps not understanding the situation and eBay are useless I suspect you might get a lot of nonsense out of them.

soolin

Just as an explanation the likely scenario is as follows;

Scammer (A) finds an accessible account owned by innocent party (B) which he hacks and buys something from innocent seller (C) . When he pays he changes the PayPal address to his own, or if he is a very good scammer somewhere that will take mail in for him.

Seller C uses the new PayPal address and ships item.

The scammer gets the item and disappears with it.

When buyer B realises there is an issue they complain to their bank and get their money back. PayPal take the money back from the seller who either loses it or invokes seller protection and is hopefully covered.

I suspect more than a few of us sellers on here have been subject to one of these bank chargebacks, from memory I had 3 last year. On each occasion I have luckily been able to invoke seller protection, but as a matter of course I also block the inoccent buyer and report them to eBay in case they are part of the fraud. I know some sellers will also report the inoccent buyer to auction fraud as well on the basis that they are either involved in the fraud or have such poor internet security that they are a risk to others.

bubs

My account was hacked recently, the first I knew was when I started receiving messages enquiring about the colour of a Michael Kors bag I was selling....I don't have a Michael Kors bag! I checked my account and found the item had been listed on my account and sold the same day.
I'd suggest you contact eBay, I spoke to someone on the phone. They will investigate, but in the meantime will tell you to change your password on your email account as well as your eBay account. I received a message from them a couple of days later detailing the actions they'd taken. I would take this route with your eBay account, that way the account is still live for if you report to the police/Action Fraud.
I didn't have the issue with money being taken like your father, have you contacted PayPal to report it too?
Hope that helps.

soolin

bubs wrote: »

My account was hacked recently, the first I knew was when I started receiving messages enquiring about the colour of a Michael Kors bag I was selling....I don't have a Michael Kors bag! I checked my account and found the item had been listed on my account and sold the same day.
I'd suggest you contact eBay, I spoke to someone on the phone. They will investigate, but in the meantime will tell you to change your password on your email account as well as your eBay account. I received a message from them a couple of days later detailing the actions they'd taken. I would take this route with your eBay account, that way the account is still live for if you report to the police/Action Fraud.
I didn't have the issue with money being taken like your father, have you contacted PayPal to report it too?
Hope that helps.

If you read the OP they also had their paypal account hacked so closed it without sorting the underlying issue and of course whilst possibly leaving access to the paypal account which will not have just closed whilst there were recent transactions. To have hacked both ebay and paypal suggests scammer has access to the email account, and changing the password on it might not be enough to stop it happening again.

The underlying hack needs to be sorted, hence my suggestion that they go to the tech board to get advice about a proper deep clean and scan.