Ebay warning
 

There is a credit card info stealing scam going around on Ebay which I became a victim of recently when making a purchase there. The thieves are able to insert themselves in the middle of the transaction which gives them access to your credit card information but otherwise they are undetected until later after they have used the credit card for very small purchases to remain under the radar of credit card companies who usually only tag larger purchases for scrutiny. In my case the first item to show up on the credit card was a taxi ride in Malysia for twenty-five cents and then several more taxi rides with the amounts slowly increasing in size. This went on for two weeks before my credit card company picked up on it and alerted me of the fraud. Ebay is aware of this happening and reportedly will not take action to prevent it. It is difficult to detect as the primary transaction still takes place and both buyers and sellers get what they are looking for out of the deal but in some cases on the credit card statement one may see the transaction is shown as being by an entity that is not the one the buyer contacted for the original sale and most just assume that it was a drop shipped item that they bought so no need for alarm when seeing that. Sadly for me, i will never buy from an ebay seller again due to this problem but want the folks here to be aware of the possibility that this is happening.

Did you contest the charge(s) or file
a complaint directly with eBay ?
Sounds like your credit card company
allowed a secured transaction to be
compromised by a third party and
did not inform you in a timely manner.
Then your credit card information was
sold to other third party folks.
I would not trust that credit card company
with any of your business.
Additional privileged information could
have been shared by them without
your knowledge.
I would do a background credit report
on yourself to see what damage has been done.


Jim

This is why I recommend everyone check their online bank statements as often as possible. The thieves are getting better and better, and the protections implemented cannot keep up.

The credit card company took care of everything no questions asked. They looked up the name of the company and discovered that it was a taxi/ limo service in Mylasia and that is what made them suspicious of the transactions. As I mentioned, the scam is done using small amounts specifically to avoid detection as most credit card companies don't flag transactions that are less than $100. I don't do any banking online or any bill paying online as I don't trust the internet although I do make some online purchases which is what caused the problem here. The only way to prevent this from happening to you is to avoid Ebay as they are the ones who allowed a third party to insert themselves in the transaction. If you search "Ebay credit card info theft", you will read about others who have been victims of this in greater detail than I went into including that Ebay is aware of it and does nothing to prevent it even though they could. This is how I figured out how my credit card info got out as I don't use the card all that often. It is not the fault of sellers or buyers on Ebay as the sellers probably have no idea that this took place at all, and buyers only find out about it after the info is used.

I set my credit card to alert me when a transaction takes place without the physical card. I know immediately when the transaction takes place. I use Citi.

I have my card alerts set to every time the card is used. With or without the card being present. This way I’m immediately aware of its usage. I started doing this after a few instances of my cards being hacked.

Happened to me twice on eBay, a few years ago.

I have never heard of this one;
Is this preventable by using PP as the payment method?

I often use PP as an extra layer of protection for shenanigan's - in part because in a post-"ebay purchasing PP world", I have understood that their buyer protection is better when using PP - and IIRC (I don't buy a lot there lately; maybe a couple times a year now) there aren't any extra fees to deal with.

I prefer the good old days of ebay - where you could see and communicate competing bidders, and where PP was a separate entity.