eBay and childbirth

Most of the following will be of interest only if you use eBay. This happened to my husband, but on the day that it did, I read a blog which detailed the same sort of event.

A few days ago, my husband, an occasional eBay user, got an email from them reminding him of his password, because he’d apparently requested this. Only he hadn’t, so he just deleted the email. Then on Saturday evening he checked his emails to find three from irate people asking why he hadn’t paid for the items he’d bid for and threatening to give him negative feedback on his record. Only he hadn’t bid for anything for months.

He tried to go into his eBay account to see what was what, but was told that his password was invalid.

Clearly someone had somehow requested the password and then intercepted the email reply; and put in some bids purporting to be him, using the password. He reported all this to eBay.

He then spent a sleepless night worrying that, if a hacker could do this, maybe he could gain access to my husband’s PayPal account and withdraw money from his bank account.

And the next day he signed into PayPal, to be told that access was restricted because of a potential problem with two transactions. These were two payments, of £500 and 60 Euros, which had been requested (but, of course, not by him) and not paid – he doesn’t quite know how PayPal knew there was something fishy about them. He then changed his password and security details and reported the whole thing to PayPal.

So do beware if you get the email reminding you of your password.

It’s rather unsettling, isn’t it?

However, there’s always something to cheer one up, such as daffodils and this, from a student’s essay. Again, she’s in my adult Access to University class.

“Up till then, my only experience of childbirth was when my mother gave birth to my teenage brother when I was seven.”