Just went to bid on something on eBay and was told my account was on hold. I checked My eBay and found I had several alerts waiting; one told me my account may have been compromised, another said it had been compromised and the following listings had been removed -- there followed a short list of listings I knew I had never placed, most of them for golf clubs (?) -- and that my account was frozen for sales or bids, with a list of instructions on getting it unfrozen.
I changed the password, changed the e-mail it linked to, and contacted their help desk. She asked if I ever received e-mail from eBay asking me to click on anything. I said dozens, daily, and I delete 'em, sticking with the My eBay page to let me know if I received anything valid. Ha! I'm an experienced scam-avoider!
Then she asked if I had ever clicked on something on eBay and been asked to log in again. That, I had to think about. My wife and I both use the same computer, with different accounts, so when I go to eBay I'm rarely already logged in. I could easily see myself clicking on something and then logging in without questioning the necessity, but that meant...
I asked if scammers were putting spoofing links into their eBay listing pages now. She answered, quote, "It's complicated," and said that aside from some auction pages and mature areas I should ever be asked to log in to see a listing.
Huh. So, if I'm figuring this correctly, not only do I have to watch for spoofing links inside lookalike eBay e-mails but now I can't necessarily trust links inside the ebay site itself. That's freaking scary.
posted
I've received three alerts in the past two weeks from ebay telling me that items I was bidding on were being removed due to accounts being hacked.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Wow. Thanks for the heads-up, Chris. I've been browsing eBay a lot lately, and I'm usually pretty cautious, but I'll be sure to be even more cautious now.
Posts: 1805 | Registered: Jun 1999
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It never ceases to amaze me how creative hackers can be. It's a shame that they don't put their talents to good use, instead of just trying to rip people off.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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My brother recently used 1-800-Call-ATT for a collect call.
What he didn't know was that 1-800-call-att has been sold to a company in Long Beach. This company charges $5.00 a minute with a 5 minute minimum. In other words, that payphone call that would have cost you 50 cents now costs you $25.
As he researched it afterwords, he found one blogger who called the company, and the company apparently said, basically, "Yeah, go ahead and sue us. Even if you won, we'd just close down this LLC and open up another one that does the same thing."
In other words, they've got the most popular number used for collect calls, and instead of doing what you and I would do--provide good service at a fair price and make money forever--they'd rather burn their bridges with every customer right at the start and put themselves out of business quickly, just so they can feel like they "put one over" on somebody.
When I was a kid, I thought con artists were cool, like Face on the A-Team. But the more and more I read about them, the more I realized they were just creepy and lame.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote: instead of doing what you and I would do--provide good service at a fair price and make money forever--they'd rather burn their bridges with every customer right at the start and put themselves out of business quickly, just so they can feel like they "put one over" on somebody.
Now imagine an entire culture where people do this on an everyday basis, and you have one reason why countries like Sri Lanka don't get ahead.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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docmagik, your brother may have been a victim of the infamous "fat fingers" scam, in which companies like Opticom buy up lots of numbers one digit off of heavily advertised numbers like 1-800-call att. Then any mistake in dialing connects you to the scam company.
quote:As he researched it afterwords, he found one blogger who called the company, and the company apparently said, basically, "Yeah, go ahead and sue us. Even if you won, we'd just close down this LLC and open up another one that does the same thing."
On a related note, I do a lot of contract work for customers, and when I'm charging big numbers sometimes it inevitably has tax repercussions, such as a 1099.
I had one customer that, well, let's just say they're descendants of "family men". They told me that they weren't going to report anything they paid me to taxes, and they prefer to pay a company rather than an individual. When I told them the tax repercussions of that, that receiving income to my company would mean that I eventually would have to pay income taxes against it, their response was "you can just close your company by the end of the fiscal year and open another one."
They were advocating just what you describe: make a bunch of money without paying taxes on it, declare bankrupcy in December, shut the company down and open a new one in January. All tax responsibility disappears.
I was bothered that they were suggesting I do this with MY company, a company I've had for nearly ten years. But also that it's so simple to do just that. Screwing your customers? Owe your customers or the government a ton of money? No problem! Tear down your company and re-open one the next day! Amazing how simple it truly is.
quote:In other words, they've got the most popular number used for collect calls, and instead of doing what you and I would do--provide good service at a fair price and make money forever--they'd rather burn their bridges with every customer right at the start and put themselves out of business quickly, just so they can feel like they "put one over" on somebody.
See, the problem is that they ARE making money "forever", a lot of it in fact. They might have a hundred different companies in a year; it only costs $87.50 to open a company in Florida. That's one six minute call, no?
There's no good answer to this problem. They always fall back to "customer awareness" being the issue, but let's face it: customers are sometimes ill-advised or flat our dumb. And companies like Opticom are very good at what they do.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Could you refuse to work for those companies?
Yes, I can.
In the end, it was only a suggestion from them, because what they were suggesting wasn't going to affect them in any way. After all, it is my choice to pay taxes on my income (which I do), adn their suggestion of dissolving my company was a way to avoid doing it, which I won't do.
It's their problem if they don't file their respective forms for their company; at the end of the year they have to report where all their income went, and it's their problem if they're unable to do so. Odds are, they'll probably close their company by the end of the year to avoid explaining that, but that doesn't affect me in any way.
I have everything documented - copies of checks, service agreement, tax filings, etc... - all verified with my CPA as being legally valid in the eyes of the government. Granted, I might have to pay a truckload in corporate income taxes at the end of my fiscal year, but that's the cost of doing business.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Even though I don't EBay often, I periodically log onto Ebay and also Paypal just to check the status of my accounts legitimately, and to make sure nothing is being hacked.
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Nighthawk, I had a friend in an even worse situation. They worked for an ethnic restaurant. They had the usual tax money deducted from thier checks every pay period. The restaurant closed and a new one, in the same place, with the same people, with the same name, but now owned by the second brother, reopened.
They never sent the money deducted from their employee's checks to the government. Since most of their employees were either family, illegals, or of very short stays, they got away with it.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Yeah - something crazy's been going on on Ebay lately. I just sold an item, and the winning bidder had all kinds of problems with having to change her password and compromised accounts. It seems to be a widespread problem that people are hearing about when they legitimately log into Ebay (i.e., not clicking over from a phishing email). It sucks!
Man, I hope that buyer sends me the money - I could so use $1045 right now! My stupid excise taxes are due!
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I've received three alerts in the past two weeks from ebay telling me that items I was bidding on were being removed due to accounts being hacked.
Yeah, I don't know what the hell is up with that particular alert. My high bidder was told that about my auction, but wrote me to verify that the listing was still up, since she still found it by searching. I had NEVER received any notice of a compromised account or a pending auction removal, and the auction closed with no problems.
I'd avoid clicking any links in an auction that tells you your bidding items are being removed.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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My eBay account was hijacked two and a half months ago and used to list dozens of Gucci handbags. They froze my account and removed all the listings, and when they unfroze it they said they'd credit my account for all the unauthorized listing fees.
But did they? No, of course not. A little while later eBay sent me an invoice for $375. I've sent a few different e-mails to different departments at eBay, but to no avail. They've started automatically charging my credit card, and the only response I've gotten to my e-mails was basically a form letter for idiot eBay newbies informing me that whenever I list something on eBay, I have to pay listing fees.
Anybody know a way to get this resolved?
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Two ways. Keep hammering at eBay and see how high you can get.
Or make a blog or website specifically for people to complain about eBay and post a complete description, with quotes and screen shots where possible, and hope enough people link to you from their blogs that eBay is forced to do something about it.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Dispute it, immediately, and close your eBay account, including taking the card off the site.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: Have you tried contacting your credit card company and disputing the charges?
I agree. Dispute the carges via your credit card company. You still have those emails from Ebay saying they'd refund the listing fees, right? Print them out. Mail copies to Ebay's customer service department and inform them that if they do not do as they promised and credit your listing fees, you will hire an attorney. I guarantee you, the fastest way to get a corporation to pay attention to you when you have a legitimate complaint is to get an attorney involved. Miraculously, you'll get a letter saying that they reviewed your account and decided to refund your fees, and the refund will arrive.
The squeaky wheel, and all that.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Unfortunately, I don't think eBay would let me close the account while I still have an outstanding bill. I do know that I can't simply remove my credit card information—I'd have to give them a different card.
But I did just call my credit card company to begin the dispute process. Disputing the charges won't be enough to resolve the problem, though; on a bill of $375, they charged me only $8.21 last month. I really need eBay to just credit my account like they said they would. But hopefully this will get the ball rolling.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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My stupid excise taxes are due!
