fake(?) account opened using my email address and suspended

[mabmeg]

Hi, not sure what the appropriate topic/location is for this post. I am very confused about a potential fraud and would like the community's advice and perspective.

I have had an ebay account since 2014 at a certain email address. I've never sold anything but have bought a few things. About a month ago, out of the blue I got a "Welcome to ebay, [Name]!" email at the same email address that my account is on. The name was not my name and it also showed a username. Then, 13 minutes later I got an email with the subject, "Your eBay account has been permanently suspended." The content of the email was addressed to the same username as the account that had just been opened. The reason was "we noticed activity that we believe is a risk to our community." It said any accounts associated with this account would also be suspended. I logged into my real account (at the same email address) and everything seemed to work fine. I was perturbed, but busy with other things, so I kind of forgot about it.

This next part may or may not be related, but a week ago I bought something on ebay and just received it. I went to leave feedback, but the item was nowhere in my purchase history. I re-read the emails and the whole transaction was with a different username (not the banned username). Like in the small text at the bottom of the email it says "ebay sent this message to [username]." When I try to log in to that account (or get a password reset since it appears connected to my email address) it says I never finished setting up the account.

I'm so confused about all of this. Does anyone know what is going on? Are these two things related? Should I be concerned about my real account? 

[katzrul15 · Accepted solution]

Yes.  I would report all this to e-Bay.

Go to the chat feature, type in "Call me".  Outline everything above.  Good luck!

[donsdetour]

Be concerned. YES.

Change your password on that email now.

You also need to contact ebay.

They will find your user name and with association to the one closed: close yours also...

You have any one angry with you at this time???

[eunster1313]

@mabmeg 

Security Center

https://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/index.html 

[mabmeg]

Thank you! I called and spoke with someone and apparently the account that was opened and then suspended had an email one character different from mine. The rep said there was no activity on that account but she thought the system "goofed" by sending me the email in the first place, then ebay suspended it because the email address was too similar to mine. I'm not totally satisfied with that answer but it does seem like I'm not in danger, so that's good. I did change all my account passwords, etc.

[donsdetour]

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@mabmeg wrote:

Thank you! I called and spoke with someone and apparently the account that was opened and then suspended had an email one character different from mine. The rep said there was no activity on that account but she thought the system "goofed" by sending me the email in the first place, then ebay suspended it because the email address was too similar to mine. I'm not totally satisfied with that answer but it does seem like I'm not in danger, so that's good. I did change all my account passwords, etc.

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Glad to see this worked out fast. Great on the password changes..

[katzrul15]

@mabmeg 

Glad they could call you and work thru it so quickly!  All the best!

[wastingtime101]

Save copies of all these e-mails. Do not delete them. Print out hard copies if you need to, @mabmeg.

If your regular account gets suspended at any point because eBay bots linked it to this situation, you will need all that info. Also write down the info from your CS call including date, time, name of rep and the reference number (if you got one).

You might also consider sending a DM to eBay on Twitter or FaceBook to confirm there's no issue, that way you'll have something in writing you can save via screenshots or printout.

eBay may have said it's ok, but I wouldn't necessarily trust it. Hope for the best, be prepared for the worst. Get that info together now while you can. Hopefully you'll never need it!

[donsdetour]

reason you got the email is your system will divert some missed spelled to your addy> not the best in the world as this does have security issues.

Contact your email provider to let them know this also happened and they can check logs to see if unusual activity had occurred on your account.

[mabmeg]

Yikes, but thank you -- I'll save all the details just in case. 

[releasethekraken_1]

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@mabmeg wrote:

Thank you! I called and spoke with someone and apparently the account that was opened and then suspended had an email one character different from mine. The rep said there was no activity on that account but she thought the system "goofed" by sending me the email in the first place, then ebay suspended it because the email address was too similar to mine. I'm not totally satisfied with that answer but it does seem like I'm not in danger, so that's good. I did change all my account passwords, etc.

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Was this a gmail account?