Logged into my email and I had an email from [email protected] it read as below:

Dear bigw2069

It appears that a third party accessed your eBay account and used it to send emails to other eBay members without your authorisation.

At this time we have taken several steps to secure your eBay account. We assure you that your credit card and bank details are kept encrypted on secure server and have not been viewed by anyone.

To restore access to your account securely' date=' please follow these steps

1. Change the password on your personal email account to verify that it is secure and cannot be accessed by anyone other than you.

2. Change the password on your eBay account. Click "Forgot your password" on the eBay sign-in page and follow the instructions to choose a new password.

3. Check that the contact information on your account is correct. Go to "Personal Information" in My eBay.

We recommend you take our Account Protection tutorial to help understand how your account was compromised and how you can protect yourself in future. Copy this link into a new browser window:

Account Protection

Thank you for your patience and cooperation in this matter. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have further queries or require assistance.

Regards,

Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)

eBay International AG

I attempted to log into ebay in a fresh browser to make sure it wasnt phishing and sure enough I couldnt access my account my password wouldnt work, so I went through the rigmaroll of 'forgot my password' and at the same time put a new password on my email just to make sure.

In my email I also had a question in Italian from an ebay member as below.

Dear nightshroud2000' date='

Caro amico,

Siamo uno dei più grandi esportatori cinesi elettronica grossisti, che possono sostenere il miglior servizio e dei prodotti

Di alta qualità con prezzi competitivi. Ansioso di fare affari nel lungo termine nave con voi.

Sito web:

Msn:

- bigw2069

Which babelfishes to:

ear nightshroud2000,

Beloved friend, We are one of the greatest Chinese exporter electronic wholesalers, that they can support the better service and of the products High-quality with competitive prices you.

Expectant to make transactions in along term the ship with you.

Situated web:

Msn:

- bigw2069

[/quote']

In my ebay messages I found 14 sent messages all in Italian to people about mobile phones but I have no listed items and also no bids on anything so fingers crossed it got caught soon enough.

So how do they get into my account in the first place? Is it simply brute force password hacking or something more sinister, anything else I should be wary of?

I would make sure your AC is up todate & try something like SpyBot S&D to make sure your PC hasn't been infected with an spyware. I would also get in touch with eBay if you haven't already & make sure they know you are back in your account & have had these messages.

Have you answered any emails from ebay that had a link in them? I used to get emails from people asking questions and then when I clicked on to respond, it gave me an ebay sign in page. This was actually a fake page and designed to steal my password. I always sign in to ebay direct to answer questions now.

Have you answered any emails from ebay that had a link in them? I used to get emails from people asking questions and then when I clicked on to respond, it gave me an ebay sign in page. This was actually a fake page and designed to steal my password. I always sign in to ebay direct to answer questions now.

I never follow any emails from them, Infact i never usually open emails even if they are from ebay, It was just this one said I had a question from a buyer and it kind of confused me as I only use ebay for buying not selling.

Just checked all my AV and its up to date and clean, spybot s&d'd and adaware and the only thing it came up with was a few tracking cookies from today?

Sent ebay a question asking how this could have happened but not really expecting anything, just glad it got caught when it did.

I can only think one of the recipients of the questions reported it to ebay and thats how it got flagged.