During the weekend I received a couple of emails from eBay – or what seemed to be eBay anyway. At first I wasn’t sure if it was a fake email, or if it was real. I read the email and they said that my account had been taken over by a 3rd-party of some kind. They called it a TKO notice.
My password "could" have been changed, along with other things. Another email from almost the same minute came and that said that the following auctions had been removed from eBay listings for security reasons. The auction titles were something to do with handbags and there were a good number of them – about 30 or so!
Getting worried, I logged in – it failed. I re-typed my password and failed again. Yes, my password had been changed! I quickly recovered my password using their forgotten password proceeder and changed it to something even more difficult to crack and harder for me to remember.
Panic over, I was logged in and everything seemed OK. I thought nothing more of it. However, last night I went to ask someone about an item I was interested in, I typed my message into the "ask seller a question" form, and after hitting the Submit button, I was prompted by a message telling me my account had been temporarily suspended from buying/selling/bidding privilege’s. Nice.
I re-read the first email they sent me again and in SMALL print they said that I must reply to this email to re-activate my account. Re-activate? You mean you disabled my account completely without telling me, without any notices on "My eBay" homepage? Thanks eBay, and I haven’t done anything wrong!
Why should I have to go through this? I had a very secure password to start with – its their problem, their security flaw, it just so happens to be my account, and now I have to suffer from their cock-up. Cheers.
Whilst I agree that the message should have been clearer in the first email, they did tell you. Would you prefer that someone had bid on say 10 cars with your account and then get you in serious shit with eBay?
Very true, I appreciate them doing what they did, but sucks that they didnt explain things further.
Expect another post shortly following on from this!
Looking forward to it.
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I never heard of a TKO Notice. That’s normally a scam to get your E-Bay password… which may be why they have suspended your account. Because it has been compromised. I would send them an e-mail independent of the e-mail you received.
Hi there, the issue has now been resolved. I had to speak to their live help support for an hour or so to get it all sorted out.
Read more about it at the bottom of this post: dazecoop.co.uk/01-11-2006/happ...
I was the victim of a recent scam on ebay where a legitimate user such as yourself had their account hijacked by scum in the Ukraine. They rerouted the email to their own, and after I won the auction, had me send a cashier’s check to a guy with Down syndrome in Texas who had no idea what his “new online job” was REALLY all about! I would have NEVER mailed a cashier’s check under dubious circumstances, but the auction looked to be conducted by a person with flawless feedback. Apparently, legitimate ebay users’ accounts are being cracked daily and bogus auctions abound. New ebay slogan: “Home of the e-grifter.”
Worst of all, ebay was ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS in giving me any info as to how to attempt to get my money back. My new slogan: “ebay sucks.”
Damn, that sounds terrible – such a shame.
eBay is a great place, unlike no other, but because of its huge size then it does have its downfalls such as this. Its a huge target (and goal) for hackers, no doubt, and its also so big that the support team don’t often give a crap. Sucks. I hope you get your account & money sorted out very soon.