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General discussion

Have any of your online retail accounts ever been compromised?

Jan 23, 2015 8:58AM PST

Discussion is locked

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CC, not email
Jan 23, 2015 10:26AM PST

Yes, but for credit cards, not for email addresses. This happened "en masse" at a major retailer. I wasn't personally hacked, but my credit card company just assigned me a new number.

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nope
Jan 23, 2015 1:30PM PST

none that I am aware of.

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Yes, and it was a pain in the ar*e!
Jan 23, 2015 10:40PM PST

I had my e=bay account hacked and it caused me all sorts of problems and, as a result, I closed my ebay account as I don't trust their security.
It was actually paypal that that contacted me, querying some transactions on my account (totaling £200 (about $300)) that didn't look like my usual type. I had to inform the banks involved who informed me that, they couldn't do anything until the money had actually left my account, at which point it would become fraud.

The funds did leave my account and yes, they were paid back to me by the banks involved but after this incident, I closed my e-bay account down and have never used it since and I also changed all of my passwords and security information, both business and personal just to make sure. I believe that its not the event that causes the most hassle, but the stress that you feel from the fallout afterwards!

Steve

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Been lucky upto now.
Jan 23, 2015 11:26PM PST

But sensible surfing helps.
Dafydd.

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Ebay account was hacked.
Jan 24, 2015 4:43AM PST

I found out when I discovered several pieces of high priced electronic gear listed for sale.

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Several points ...
Jan 24, 2015 4:11PM PST

Couple of off-the-cuff points come to mind:

1/ it helps if you shop with local retailers in a small country, like Switzerland : there are so many, and the open source online-shop packages included with hosting packages are quite well protected against hacking into in the first place.

2/ 'real' brick and mortar stores -where I carry the purchase home with me- do not really need my e-mail address, so don't get it.

3/ closing the account when you do not foresee a follow-on purchase looming would only help if your details were wiped, which most shops are reluctant to do.

4/ those who have a 'family domain' can assign a specific e-mail address to each shop, magazine and whatnot, change that once it becomes too spammy.

5/ those shop-specific addresses can easily be filtered to the correct family member or folder, or when compromised be set to fail with a customised message to sender.

6/ online services such a Gmail offer advantages: decent spam and virus filtering (so does my webhost!) , the freedom to change ISP w/o loosing your e-mail address, and access away from home (which can be a bane if you're not careful when logging in while away from home.

As always, these are the points which come to mind, the list is undoubtedly incomplete, some items may not apply to your specific situation : hence do your own research.

Hope this helps?