Email account has been hacked.

[RogerS]

just listened this am to a radio show that described how the phishers are using AI to generate more convincing msgs, so we've all gotta pay more attn!

There was an excellent article in the FT Weekend a while back on AI. One of the sneaky things they got an AI to do was circumvent Captcha when logging in somewhere. The AI went into a chat session with the Helpdesk to ask how to get round it and the chat operator at the other end, after a few questions, began to suspect if they were chatting to an AI and asked. The AI closed the chat and went away 'to think' ho wit could get round this. After a while, having come up with a solution, it opened another chat session and explained that it had visual disabilities that made Captcha difficult. The chat agent let them in!

 

[Chris70]

Sorry, I forgot to add when I done the post that the first dodgy emails a received also showed my password that I use for various websites that I purchase things from, which was really concerning.

I think with this just starting coincides with me purchasing some cheap bits and bobs from a popular Chinese website within the last few days so they my have got my details from them, needless to say I have deleted my account.

Can I also say a big thank you for your responses so far, some I admit I don’t fully understand with being a non techie so to speak as I’m a dinosaur from the 1970’s so luckily I don’t do online banking, which under the circumstances would worry me, and the horror shown by other people when I tell them I don’t even own a mobile phone!

Never, never, never use the same password twice. Use a different password for each account. This is a doddle when use a PASSWORD MANAGER. Just saying.

 

[Owd Jockey]

The swines have now accessed my EBay account and have entered their own password so I can’t access it, and trying to contact them is nearly impossible.

I think the only other place i have my credit card entered is Amazon so I have contacted my bank and they thought the best thing to do was cancel the card incase they make any purchases.

I would love to meet these people one day as they would be eating dinner through a straw.

Hi Phil, my Ebay account was hacked with scammers selling cars etc.. on it. Ebay automatically locked my account and told me to reset my password. I then got into a loop with their advice of changing my password. Impossible to do, impossible to contact them through any media, no phone/email contact no help or support desk. Checking out on the net it appears that is the norm. So my account remains frozen.
The good news, for me, is that I do not use Ebay for selling, solely for buying. So I can still buy stuff on Ebay as a Guest,

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes, I too have an ebay account I can't cancel. Their communication is non existent. I have another account but of course I lost all the rating which is a pain when I sell higher value stuff.

Don't you just love the circular "if you've forgotten your password enter your password here to change it" and "if you've forgotten your password, enter the last password you remember" type advice?

 

[Dabop]

Hi Phil, my Ebay account was hacked with scammers selling cars etc.. on it. Ebay automatically locked my account and told me to reset my password. I then got into a loop with their advice of changing my password. Impossible to do, impossible to contact them through any media, no phone/email contact no help or support desk. Checking out on the net it appears that is the norm. So my account remains frozen.
The good news, for me, is that I do not use Ebay for selling, solely for buying. So I can still buy stuff on Ebay as a Guest,

You can normally get the 'online assistant' (which is totally useless imho) but you can get an actual person via it (use the 'contact us' down the bottom of the page ie this is one of their 'how to' pages if you lose control of your account at Get help with a hacked account, go right down the bottom to the 'contact us' and you should get the popup window with the chatbot on the right... just keep typing 'contact agent' into it and it will (after several attempts to convince you otherwise) to do so...
eg

I worked for a company that had their account lost and that was the way we managed to get control of it back (always change passwords etc if a disgruntled employee leaves and they have had access LOL)

It would be nice if they had a less clumsy system of contacting them though...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I did get through to a live person once. She guided me all the way through the system right back to the beginning of what didn't work and left me there. Every time I tried to get into my ebay account and failed, I got a message that someone was trying to get into my ebay account. Doubly irritating.

 

[Owd Jockey]

Thanks Dabop for that info. Unfortunately, for me, and I suspect many others this does not work. Writing down a flow flow diagram of the permutations to successfully speak to a 'real person' ultimately loops back to a 'bot' (automatic assistant). You can even get to a free phone number - 0800 358 6552. But after giving the phone number associated with the account, the 'bot' offers to play advice or send links (which you can find yourself on the Ebay site).
It is quite obvious that their intention is to minimise actual customer services interaction, thus saving money. The whole process reminds me of Heller's brilliant novel "Catch 22", where themes of contradiction, quagmire, frustration and insanity were played out.
I feel sorry for those hacked account holders whose business'es and livelihoods are dependent on selling stuff on Ebay.

 

[Blackswanwood]

If it helps this is the e-mail address for the UK CEO of e-bay ...

[email protected]

 

[selectortone]

I feel your pain phil p. About six months ago someone with my account number and sort code rang my bank and tried to get them to change the on-line login. Fortunately they smelled a rat, but it resulted in my account being frozen for three weeks and having to visit my nearest branch in person with two sets of identity docs. I had to get them to pay an outstanding credit card bill and advance some cash while the account was frozen. Very stressful as I was locked out of online banking which I have become accustomed to using for most financial transactions now.

And just this week I had a letter from the bank asking me to call their fraud line (which I double-checked first) and now it seems someone tried to make a balance transfer using my credit card, which has resulted in that being cancelled and I have to wait for a new one now, with a new number. Another pain as my car is in the body shop this week and I was intending to use tge card to pay for the work.

Not to mention the three or four calls a month I get purporting to be from the bank, trying to weasel card information out of me. Or the 30 or 40 scam emails I see in my email spam folder every month. At least Gmail has a good filter.

The world is full of scammers now, and so many online companies' databases have been hacked, that it's only going to get worse, especially when they start using AI to come up with more and more sophisticated scams. All you can do is be vigilant, never click on a link in an email, even from friends and family, without checking its credentials and never give your card details over the phone to any unsolicited caller, however genuine they might seem.

What a world.