Finally got a response. Some of this is good to know for us all. Also, check out the na,e of the person who responded. I had to laugh.
Hello,
Thank you for writing to eBay and alerting us of this situation.
The email you reported did not come from eBay. I reviewed your account
and it does not appear to have been tampered with. There is also no
record of unauthorized bidding or selling at this time, and your account
is not suspended.
It sounds like you may have unknowingly provided a fraudulent entity
with the information they were requesting. If this is the case there are
some steps you will need to take to protect yourself against fraud.
If you entered personal information such as your password, social
security number or credit card numbers into a Web site based on a
request from a spoofed email, you need to take immediate action to
protect your identity. We have developed an eBay Help page with valuable
information regarding the steps you should take to protect yourself.
To get to the "Protecting Your Identity" Help page from the eBay site,
please follow the steps outlined below:
- Go to the eBay site and click on the Help link at the top of most eBay
pages
- Click on the "Safe Trading" link, which will open a list of sub
categories
- Click on, "If Something Goes Wrong"
- Click on "Identity Theft" and review the information provided
If you gave out other information such as social security number or
credit card numbers you will need to contact the agencies below to
further protect your information from being used for fraud.
1. Contact your credit card company to let them know what has taken
place and cancel the card.
2. If you provided bank account information, please contact your bank to
inform them of the situation.
3. File a police report immediately as some credit card companies
require this when an account has been compromised.
4. Call the three national credit reporting organizations immediately to
place a fraud alert on your name and Social Security Number.
Equifax 1-800-525-6285
Experian (formerly TRW) 1-888-397-3742
Trans Union 1-800-680-7289
5. File an identity theft complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.
You can file a complaint by using one of the following options:
- Internet:
http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft
- Telephone: 1-877-IDTHEFT (438-4338)
- TTY: 202-326-2502
6. Change the passwords on all of your online accounts, including your
email account and possibly your online banking websites. These may
include Billpoint, PayPal and your personal banking account.
Hopefully your actions are swift, as they will protect you in this
situation. Additionally, I want to assure you that eBay has a team in
place and is working with various law enforcement agencies on an
investigation into this situation. I have already forwarded your
information on to them.
As a reminder, within the eBay Privacy Policy, we strongly recommend
that you do not give out your password and User ID to anyone. eBay has
very high standards when it comes to your privacy and the information
that you provide us. We use your information in accordance with our User
Agreement and Privacy Policy. We provide you with prior notice whenever
we modify or change our User Agreement or Privacy Policy. Our privacy
policies are held to the high standard of outside organizations, such as
TrustE
http://www.truste.org. For a review and summary of our privacy policy,
please go to:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/welcome/privacy_summary.html
Even if another person gains access to your eBay password and logs into
your eBay account, your credit card and bank information is still safe
on our site. Sensitive banking information cannot be accessed using
your ID and password.
Currently we store all sensitive information on an encrypted server.
Information previously supplied may be updated but cannot be retrieved
by the user. This means you may add new information but cannot access
old information. This is just one of many safeguards we use to protect
your most sensitive information.
Many companies offer our users third party services that require the use
of their eBay password and User ID. We do not know how these companies
use your information and therefore, we still encourage you, as a general
policy, not to disclose your User ID and password to anyone, and read
very closely a company's privacy policy if you choose to provide any
information to them.
We appreciate your efforts to contact us regarding your experience.
Please let me know if there is anything further I can do.
Regards,
Farrah
eBay SafeHarbor
Investigations Team