Does Anyone Know How to Handle This?

[livadia]

I just learned a very, dear, close friend of mine suddenly and tragically passed away.  Besides being good friends, we were "eBay Buddies."   She got into casually selling on eBay a couple of years ago in an attempt to downsize and de-clutter and often would call me for suggestions/guidance since I had been on the site far longer and generally tried to keep abreast of all the latest changes/new requirements as she did not.

Long story short, when I saw her husband today, I asked him if there was anything I could do to help him or the family, he said he knew I was my friend's "eBay go-to girl" and asked me if I could help him take care of her eBay affairs as he knows nothing of/about it other than she occasionally would get a sale and was always concerned when they went out of town "she needed to take care of her listings" before they left.

I told him certainly I would be happy to do whatever I could, but upon reflection, I don't know how I will be able to do anything as I don't know any of her login credentials and in fact don't even know the name of a second basic account she recently opened so that she'd have an additional listing allotment available.

I checked her main/original account and she indeed has 20 items up actively at the moment.  As noted above, I have no idea what  even the name of the second account is, so it's possible she may have more items out there currently active as well.

One might say, who cares about any of this since she's deceased and at this point any negs she gets for non-shipment are irrelevant.  But, on the other hand, it will help no one if the items listed sell as there's no one to locate/ship the item and everyone goes through a lot of angst because of it.  Plus, due to inevitable inactivity the account/s could be targets for hi-jacking.  There also could be some money sitting in her PP account that could be prone to hacking or at some point, inaccessible, if the bank account associated with it is closed which generally required once the account holder is deceased.  

All of this is total Greek to her husband -- she was the one who was much more online/e-commerce savvy.  I sincerely doubt he even knows what PP is about and certainly has never used it.  All of that stuff, was her domain.

Bottom line, I know the best course of action would to get the active items taken down, start making arrangements to close her eBay account/s and eventually sort out any PayPal business down the road. But, how to do that?

As usual, I've looked everywhere to see if I could find anything on eBay about what to do in such situations and have come up empty-handed.    I loathe trying to call eBay CS as I'm sure I would get a different/conflicting/inaccurate answer from every rep I talked to so I am hoping someone here might have gone through/recall a similar situation and may have some advice.

I'm thinking perhaps eBay might need a copy of a death certificate as proof the account owner is deceased?    If so, where to send it/what department?   Any ideas/suggestions?   Anyone have had any experience on the PayPal side about handling this type of situation?   I've also come up empty-handed there, though I don't dread calling them as much as I do eBay...

Thanks in advance any help/suggestions you all may have.

[nobody*s_perfect]

Do you or her husband have access to her email accounts? That would be the way to access her ebay accounts, even to identify the one you're not sure about.  Once you know the email addresses of her eBay accounts, you can use those to sign in and re-set her passwords.  Then take down the listings and start the process of closing the accounts as if you were the account holder.

[bonjourami]

 If you use this link to contact Ebay they will tell you where to send the death certificate..PP too, requires a death certificate to close the account, sorry for your loss. 

https://www.ebay.com/help/home

[myboardid]

Are you physically close to her?  If you had access to her office area you might find some useful information - passwords, etc, that would enable you to at least take down her listings before any serious damage happens and them work on closing the accounts.  I am assuming her husband has no interest in taking over her eBay work. 

[mudshark61369]

@livadia,

Good advice from the previous members.  Ask her husband to search around her desk or whereever she might keep a list of login info for various sites.  Many of us have them secreted away someplace. It could save time and money if he can find the info sooner rather than later.

For others reading this topic. Consider leaving ebay info with someone in case of emergency. 

[penguins_dont_fly]

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@mudshark61369 wrote:

@livadia,

Good advice from the previous members.  Ask her husband to search around her desk or whereever she might keep a list of login info for various sites.  Many of us have them secreted away someplace. It could save time and money if he can find the info sooner rather than later.

For others reading this topic. Consider leaving ebay info with someone in case of emergency. 

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I have a "Red Book". It is a folder that contains all of my eBay, Etsy and PayPal info plus email addresses and other pertinent information.

It has simple instructions for my husband about how to shut the listings down and who to call for help if there is stuff that needs to be shipped or if there are returns open.

My "eBay buddy" knows she is the contact and knows what to do after the initial "emergency vacation mode" that my husband can initiate 🙂

They both know where the "Red Book" is 😉

[lintbrush*]

I am sorry for your loss.  I hope you are able to help her husband in his time of grief.

[tunicaslot]

So sorry for your loss livadia - all the above posters gave wonderful information to track down and access her listings. I too have a book with all the essential acct information in it - just in case. As you said - there may be Paypal money available and you don't want to see the acct hijacked.

[a_c_green]

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@livadia wrote: 
I told him certainly I would be happy to do whatever I could, but upon reflection, I don't know how I will be able to do anything as I don't know any of her login credentials and in fact don't even know the name of a second basic account she recently opened so that she'd have an additional listing allotment available.

Before you do anything else, contact her husband and see if you can get yourself seated in front of her own computer. It's entirely possible that if you retrace her usual login steps on that machine, it will have her current password stored and will let you right in. At that point, you should be able to see what's listed and get some cleanup done yourself at that time.

Also, if she used Google Chrome as her browser, it may have her account passwords stored, tied to her Gmail login. Although it stores them in encrypted form, it will show them to you if it identifies you as the user. I'm a little pressed for time at this moment and can't go into all the details of how to access those in this post (Googling the steps involved should show you the process), but that might be another option for gaining access to her accounts. (Other browsers may have similar capabilities; I'm not familiar with those.) Again, although some of this can be done remotely, the best chance of achieving the most success here is to be physically present using her own machine. Her husband may be able to find or recall other details for you as well, so have him there.

While it's true that dormant accounts could be hacked, it's more likely that they can get phished by fooling the accountholder into trying to log in, so if there's no one around to answer the phishing emails sent to that account anymore, then that's not a risk. The accounts could be hacked on the basis of sharing the same password used on other accounts (e.g. if bad guys get your Hotmail ID and password, they will promptly try to access Gmail, eBay, PayPal, etc., using the same credentials), so once you're able to change the account password(s) to something of your choosing, they're about as secure as they're going to get. Actually closing them out can be a secondary concern at that point.

Basically, the best way to help is to gain access to her machine, and take it from there. Keep us posted, please.

[smileytown18]

Also, eBay should be able to tell you which accounts are tied to the IP address (or billing address), if she had multiple. I don't think a regular overseas CS agent though can help with that

[monster-deals]

Listen, if the husband is executor he will almost assuredly need to be the one, not you making those calls to ebay.

The most you really should be doing is giving him the phone number.

[ripcityresell]

Exactly. I'm on the higher end of tech savvy and still keep all my account names and passwords stored in my browser. All anyone ever has to do is open a browser and all my stuff is there for the taking.

Now, off to open that email with the non-suspicious link... 🙂

[lewisburggold]

So sorry for loss.  Best regards

[emerald40]

Sending you good wishes and prayers.  I am so sorry for your loss.