4 ms·

Every eBay account in the world has been hacked

5 points by milesf 12y ago

milesf 12y ago
I remember the early days of eBay when the founder said people in the world are basically trustworthy. I wonder what his opinion is now?
dmfdmf 12y ago
I don't have an ebay account but if I did I would put a credit alert on my name at the credit bureaus. Its free and does not impact you in anyway unless you are in the process of buying a car or house or some other big ticket item requiring new credit. A single request puts the alert on all the major credit bureaus. https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Could you outline your rationale there - are you suggesting that cc numbers have leaked along with other details?
  - doubt_me 12y ago
    Even though ebay said it hasn't been compromised how can I trust that if it took them 2 weeks to notice this one
  - dmfdmf 12y ago
    Its not just about hacking your current CC but identity theft and opening new credit in your name and charging thousands of dollars before they are shutdown. The aftermath for the victim is years of effort getting it all straightened out -- including the nightmare of credit agencies not believing the client that they got hacked. Not to mention indifferent police departments that hide behind jurisdiction issues when the crime spans multiple counties, if not states. With the leaked ebay info all they probably need is a SSN to open store credits and I am sure the crooks have other databases to cross with this info to get a complete set necessary to open an account. And don't forget about phishing calls, now that they know so many details about the users the crooks can call them and credibly pretend to be various institutions that the ebay users have a relationship with and thus coax more info out of them. The elderly are particularly prone to this type of scam. I have a friend who's identity was stolen and it was a nightmare. The crooks opened numerous store accounts in his name, typically for furniture and electronic stores. They had the goods shipped to some address and then sold it, ironically enough, on ebay. All told they got away with over $80,000 in theft. In cleaning up this mess my friend discovered from the FBI investigator assigned to his case that he was lucky -- all the theft was in another state and so there was no disputing that it was him and the crooks exceed some magic number of dollars and thus it was an FBI issue not a local police issue. It still took him over a year of work to get it all resolved. I recently got some obvious phishing calls which is why I put a fraud alert on my accounts, it cost me nothing and has no impact on my ability to use my credit.
omilu 12y ago
Fortunately ebay has over 100 million active users so the odds of the hackers actually using my account is negligible :/

5 points by milesf 12y ago

I remember the early days of eBay when the founder said people in the world are basically trustworthy. I wonder what his opinion is now?

dmfdmf 12y ago

I don't have an ebay account but if I did I would put a credit alert on my name at the credit bureaus. Its free and does not impact you in anyway unless you are in the process of buying a car or house or some other big ticket item requiring new credit. A single request puts the alert on all the major credit bureaus. https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
Could you outline your rationale there - are you suggesting that cc numbers have leaked along with other details?
- doubt_me 12y ago
  Even though ebay said it hasn't been compromised how can I trust that if it took them 2 weeks to notice this one
- dmfdmf 12y ago
  Its not just about hacking your current CC but identity theft and opening new credit in your name and charging thousands of dollars before they are shutdown. The aftermath for the victim is years of effort getting it all straightened out -- including the nightmare of credit agencies not believing the client that they got hacked. Not to mention indifferent police departments that hide behind jurisdiction issues when the crime spans multiple counties, if not states. With the leaked ebay info all they probably need is a SSN to open store credits and I am sure the crooks have other databases to cross with this info to get a complete set necessary to open an account. And don't forget about phishing calls, now that they know so many details about the users the crooks can call them and credibly pretend to be various institutions that the ebay users have a relationship with and thus coax more info out of them. The elderly are particularly prone to this type of scam. I have a friend who's identity was stolen and it was a nightmare. The crooks opened numerous store accounts in his name, typically for furniture and electronic stores. They had the goods shipped to some address and then sold it, ironically enough, on ebay. All told they got away with over $80,000 in theft. In cleaning up this mess my friend discovered from the FBI investigator assigned to his case that he was lucky -- all the theft was in another state and so there was no disputing that it was him and the crooks exceed some magic number of dollars and thus it was an FBI issue not a local police issue. It still took him over a year of work to get it all resolved. I recently got some obvious phishing calls which is why I put a fraud alert on my accounts, it cost me nothing and has no impact on my ability to use my credit.

omilu 12y ago

Fortunately ebay has over 100 million active users so the odds of the hackers actually using my account is negligible :/