Alimentary, my dear Watson-second

[shalanna]

I think I've deduced what happened to my eBay account.

It wasn't hijacked . . . I handed 'em this one, I think. You see, my mother's best friend's granddaughter wanted to buy something on eBay a couple of weeks ago, and she had her own account, so she bid on the item and won. Whoops--this seller ONLY takes PayPal. She's 14. Her parents aren't PayPal-literate. They know that I am, so somehow I was Persuaded that she could come over, go to her checkout page for this auction, and then turn her back while I entered my email and PayPal password and completed the checkout through PayPal. Then she handed me the cash. Done! No harm done . . . we thought.

But. But! And again, BUT! (As it says in _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_.)

When you win an auction and then go to pay with PayPal, you put in your email address and so forth. Well, now that eBay owns PayPal or has some kind of connection, THEY are now monitoring this. Your PayPal email address gets linked to that eBay ID in their database from THEN ON. (Verify this by looking at what comes up the next time that account goes to checkout page.) Still not sounding real scary? Well, it is. Because apparently the next DAY or so, this kid went out and bid on stuff she couldn't afford, her mom said NO WAY, and the account ended up getting suspended. Therefore . . .

. . . you guessed it. That's the ID that came up on the e-mail I finally got from eBay's Trust Gestapo, the ID that my account is supposedly linked to. And when you are linked to a suspended account, they immediately suspend you. They do this check (matching PayPal email addys against the accounts they have been used by and going out to zap anyone who is "linked to a suspended account") as a batch job around midnight every night, or so I conjecture, because that's when I got zapped. For all I know, they check "shipping addresses" as well, because they say anyone in the household with an Evil Suspended Worm must immediately be suspended forevermore, as well.

To test my theory, I had hubby log in with his account and bid on a plain-Jane sterling chain that was ending in fifteen minutes and had a price that seemed reasonable. (Yep, it's probably one that some stickyfinger ripped off from JCPenney, because it looks exactly like the curb chains that are on 40% off all the time in our Plano store.) He won the auction. I then had him go to the checkout page. He has no PayPal account, so I had him let me put my ID in and try to go pay with PayPal.

Nope!!! Immediately it detected that the Evil SOB Bad Person We Hate was trying to buy something (they have installed some woo-woo detection safeguards recently, I suppose) and it went directly to a page that said "This function is temporarily not available." Of course he thought they were telling the truth, and so he didn't hit me . . . until about fifteen minutes later, when he got an e-mail message saying that his account is now suspended and he's blocked because yadda, yadda, yadda.

Agitated, he tried to log on and got the blocked page. He's not very happy with me or with eBay right now, but in the mood he's in, he will NEVER shop an eBay-style site EVER AGAIN. He can't even get on to close his account, which makes him VERY angry. He says this proves they are making too many connections and collecting a database of info about you. Between your eBay ID and the PayPal info (bank account and credit card numbers and access, your home address, and all that) and the info they have about your buying habits, they are getting quite a marketable database. They can secretly (I wouldn't put it past them) sell that to marketers who want to target you to buy similar stuff. Maybe he's paranoid, but as George Carlin once said, all that paranoia can pay off handsomely if even ONCE you turn out to be right. . . .

So that's what happened and how it went down that I became persona non grata on the world's biggest pawnshop *GRIN* (apologies to wildcelticrose). Moral of the story is: don't do a favor for anybody. And just don't shop on eBay. They are making it more and more difficult for a regular person like me, and easier for crime theft rings, it looks like . . . because hey, the crime people are still out there and they're not suspended!

Feh.

We spent the past week working on getting the garage door fixed. What we couldn't fix was the huge springs that had snapped, and so we fixed all the little things that were keeping it from working last week. Today we finally got the repair guy out, and he replaced those two hideously dangerous springs that pull it up, and then he said the repair we made to the screw drive on the opener isn't enough, so we went out and got another Genie opener . . . aaughh. Anyway, maybe we'll be operational with that by tomorrow night. Exhaustion!

Also, when you get a huge scratch across the back of your hand and pour peroxide on it to boil out the cooties, your hand may turn several different colors. It's just the peroxide cleaning off all that filth . . . I think. It's not mottled or anything, so I'm keeping an eye on it. If it doesn't go back to a pink color (from deadish white) soon, I'll have to go to an urgent care center and ask them if it's something to worry about. Eek!

(It's not numb or tingling or alarming in any other way. There's just a skunk-stripe of white with an angry red scratch down the middle. Gross! I put Neosporin on, so maybe I won't keel over from it before I finish with whatever my mission in life is--which is so far being kind of a moveable feast, as best I can tell.)

"I'll have what SHE'S having."

Comments

[selidororous.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about this - even worse for the 14 year old - she did read ebay's rules regarding one has to be 18 years old or over in order to do business on that site, right? Anyways, best of luck in getting it straightened out.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

>she did read the rules<

*snicker* *guffaw* *ROFL*

She's 14 and the typical hormone-crazed airhead (no, really!), so probably not. She has free rein on the computer at home "to do homework" and they are really proud that she can "program" (sigh) and do all this stuff. Still, the mistake was, I suppose, allowing her to buy the one thing. Then she decided it was fun to mouse around. I'll bet she just got in over her head and panicked. I remember being that age, and I imagine it is ten times more difficult in this day and age! We had fewer temptations, I believe. Though we weren't perfect, either . . . *grin*

Anyhow, I don't need to be buying things, either! Hubby already "suggested" that we not buy stuff from there. Many times you'll see something for sale there, but the same thing can be had at various online stores. I always see CDs and silver charms that can be bought at regular online stores for only a bit more money. What was I thinking letting someone else talk me into doing the PayPal thing for them, anyway? Trying to be nice, that's what. Well, "no more mister nice gal," I guess. It was a lapse in judgment on the part of several of us!

It's still fun to browse the listings, but it's crazy to get hooked on buying even MORE junk when the house is already stuffed. So I'll try to be good from now on.

[teriegarrison.livejournal.com]

You know, if someone hacked into your PayPal account and started using it to buy things off their eBay ID, you'd be pretty well pissed off that eBay didn't have better security to put a stop as soon as possible when the illegal activity occurred.

It's unfortunate that this happened, but the fact is, it's not eBay's fault. It's the young lady's and yours for not following the proper procedures. You could have contacted the seller before the close of the auction, explained the situation and asked whether, if your friend won the auction, the seller be willing to bill your PayPal account. If they're an experienced seller they would've done, and if they weren't your friend would've just had to pass. Or maybe have you do both the bidding and paying on your eBay ID.

So while I understand your aggravation because you weren't actually doing anything wrong, you did (inadvertantly) do something that is EXACTLY the pattern of criminal activity.

Frankly, it makes me feel more secure in my eBay shopping to know they have such security in place. However, after reading the comments to your first post, I know that I'll avoid buying 'new' merchandise hereafter and stick with stuff that's obviously used.

I don't think this increases PayPal security, though--

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree that if this is the reason, my suspension makes more sense. *But* I don't think that this is a sign of good security *at all*. What they did wouldn't help at all in the case of hacking into a PayPal account, as they don't care how many IDs are linked to your PayPal account and they don't flag that or notify you in any way (though PayPal notifies you by email of every transaction, so you'd catch it then, with luck); what they did was suspend my account because HER account went bad, and when that happened, they started tracking down anyone associated with her on the assumption that we'd all be deadbeats and not pay for stuff. Before she defaulted on her auctions, they didn't have a problem--they just linked the two accounts benignly. See what I mean? (Not trying to argue with you, but I just see it differently.)

When I first posted about it, I had no idea as to why they would think that my account was connected to one that was suspended . . . and I still am not SURE that what I outlined is what happened; I'm just making a conjecture, because I won't be getting any answers from them.

You could legitimately have more than one eBay ID connected to one PayPal account, though, because you could have husband and wife both buying things--and the same bank account can't be connected to two PayPal accounts. Each person could track his/her purchases and use their normal checking account. Ebay doesn't try to stop the PayPal transaction going through--they stopped Hubby's payment for the auction before he got that far.

Anytime I send or receive money using PP, I get an e-mail notification right away. I'd see the notifications if *anyone* used it. I'm online often, so I keep an eye on that mail folder. And eBay didn't object or stop the transaction when I originally did the PayPal for the teenager--it was only when she (apparently) abandoned her account with lots of unpaid stuff that they came after anyone connected to it. The reason their system got after Hubby so fast was that they had, by then, marked my PayPal account as being "connected to a suspended user." THAT was his sin, not using someone else's PayPal account.

So what they did wouldn't really help you if someone had hacked into your PayPal and was using it to pay for their purchases--not until they abandoned that eBay ID *and* got a number of unpaid item strikes; that could take a while. The system wouldn't stop those transactions (it was only after she trashed her account that they came after me.) *After* that, though, they'd kill any ID that tried to use your PayPal account--IF my theory is correct. EBay has been silent on the subject, so this is all speculation.

I keep on top of the PayPal dangers by watching for any [non-spoof] e-mail from PayPal, changing password frequently, and logging in to look at my account every day or so. Does that make sense as to why I don't think that what I described would help at all as far as unauthorized PayPal use? (Because they don't stop you when you use someone else's PayPal account--they will only stop you when the account linked to yours goes boom. And my PayPal account is still happy, as I used it to pay for an online purchase a few hours ago. eBay didn't shut IT down at all.)

I was just in a tight social spot. I couldn't have contacted the seller before auction close about this, because I didn't know I would be asked for this favor until after the kiddo had won the item and wanted to go ahead and buy it. Same with the idea of me doing the bidding. Basically, this was a teen who did this without the parents knowing, and the parents decided to let her buy the item because they thought it was nice, and they came to me asking for the favor. I probably should've said no, but I was trying to be nice and everyone else saw this as being about the same as my picking up the restaurant check and getting cash from the others at the table (for example.) Moral is--just say no and be the one people call "mean." *GRIN*

[neo-prodigy.livejournal.com]

And suddenly I am so glad I never set up my eBay account.

[dennismhavens.livejournal.com]

Sorry you and yours have suffered because of this. And y'all should check with all three national credit-reporting agencies to ensure that eBay didn't rat you out to Experian, Trans Union and that other one (sorry, brief senior moment). The worst reverberation of all would be if somewhere ahead you went to buy a car -- or a HOUSE! -- and discovered you couldn't qualify.

Doesn't eBay own (or isn't it now owned by) Google? Fox News Channel, as I write this, is going to tell us something we don't want to hear about Google having plans "to dominate something much bigger than its market." The world, perhaps? Arrgh!

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

"What are we doing today, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every day, Pinky--try to take over the world!!"

This is just a minor irritant. I thought I should vent, but basically they have thrown away a good customer, that's all. For no reason, because I still don't agree with a previous comment that this is the pattern of a criminal . . . what, to have a PayPal account that has been used on more than one ID and no one has complained about the charges because they were legit? I should think rather that the criminals are the ones who are fencing stolen goods, new in box with tags, and getting away with it. Ah, well.

It can't affect my credit, as they haven't claimed that I did anything but be cross-linked or associated with an account (someone else's) that they suspended. They don't report to credit bureaus--and they couldn't, really, because what non-paying bidders have done is break a contract to buy, and in most states you have a cooling-off period after signing a contract anyway. It's not THAT that bugs me. It's that they think that anyone who is linked to a "suspended account holder" should also be suspended--because that doesn't make sense to me.

If I were a SELLER, it might make more sense. After all, a seller who gets suspended usually has ripped people off. But a buyer who had paid for all her auctions so far, ever, and suddenly you decide that she's linked to someone you have suspended and you zap her? And after that, since she can't get on to pay for existing auctions she has won, it is inevitable that she'll get unpaid items after that, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Man, I already HAVE a house. Used to have TWO. Never late on a mortgage payment. Nor on any of our car payments. Thirty days late on Penneys a couple of times over twenty-odd years of having an account, and Penneys still lets me charge. But of course I'm sure I don't qualify for anything, not even welfare. **ACK**

I can sing almost as good as Randy Newman, Neil Young, and Peter Tork, though. Right??!! **wink**

Throwing out the bath with the baby water

[dennismhavens.livejournal.com]

You're right on all points. That "cooling-off period" is known legally as "The Right of Recission," and it's a very useful right in those places where it is taken seriously. (Car dealers have their own ways of getting you to waive it, but all in all we're better off with it on the books, which it is in most states.)

Anyway, sorry you had to go through the hassle.