eBay & Paypal Allowing On-Selling of Personal Information to Third Parties ???

[the2numpties]

Has anybody else been receiving untold numbers of calls from dodgey off-shore call centres and wondered how they got your phone number in the first place.....

Well it would appear eBay and Paypal are at the centre of this scam by either directly or indirectly selling, passing on, or allowed hackers access to your personal and private information to third party companies.

We set up an anon eBay buyers account, plus a disposable credit card linked to a  Paypal account, along with a disposable mobile number. We deliberately used a stooge name, DOB, address etc.

It should be noted all these details, card, phone etc were ONLY used for the eBay & Paypal account. Bottom line being we had received 23 calls in just 9 days and Telstra or in fact any Australian telco were powerless to stop them.

Made several small purchases on eBay (all in different parts of Asia) and then just waited.

Sure the goods we purchased arrived in 2 -4 weeks, but within 6 weeks we started getting cold calls from ofshore call centres on the mobile number asking for "Mr Wan Ker" (being the stooge name we established). 

We actually kept one of these companies on the phone long enough to identify we appeared (or Mr Wan Ker appeared) on a list that contained even the age demographic of people this particular call centre was calling. 

Now draw whatever conclusions you wish from this exercise, but the common link was eBay and Paypal.

[bimberiretrosystems]

That's i'm afraid the final straw for me-after i use up some free listings it's no more selling or buying here-HOPE EBAY ARE HAPPY-how scummy.

[digital*ghost]

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@the2numpties wrote:

Made several small purchases on eBay (all in different parts of Asia) and then just waited.

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I think you will find that to be the more likely source of the leak.

Your information is provided to the sellers, it has to be, so you can't really blame eBay / PayPal for providing that information to the sellers, and it is not uncommon at all for sellers in China etc to on-sell customer databases.

If you really want to see results that have some chance of more conclusively blaming eBay and PayPal than this, you would at least have to run some further control tests involving other sites, as well as eBay sellers from other areas, eg exclusively (and definitely) sellers located in Australia, or the US, etc.

[cmcoins2000]

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@the2numpties wrote:

It should be noted all these details, card, phone etc were ONLY used for the eBay & Paypal account. Bottom line being we had received 23 calls in just 9 days and Telstra or in fact any Australian telco were powerless to stop them.

I have been on the 'no call' list for a number of years & couldn't understand why people wanted to either fix my computer or give me a holiday.

Seems after a word with one savvy at the 'no call' centre there is nothing to be done as those calls are usually through Skype.

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[putney32]

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@cmcoins2000 wrote:

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@the2numpties wrote:

It should be noted all these details, card, phone etc were ONLY used for the eBay & Paypal account. Bottom line being we had received 23 calls in just 9 days and Telstra or in fact any Australian telco were powerless to stop them.

I have been on the 'no call' list for a number of years & couldn't understand why people wanted to either fix my computer or give me a holiday.

Seems after a word with one savvy at the 'no call' centre there is nothing to be done as those calls are usually through Skype.

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are you aware that you have to renew your 'no call' status every now and then?  I cannot remember exactly it is either every 2 or 3 years.   have you been renewing your status?

I have been on ebay for 15 years, never had any such problems with contacts, however I never buy items from Asia.

I believe therein lies your basic problem.  Asian sellers on-selling buyer information

[lyndal1838]

You complain about ebay and paypal being dodgy but are quite happy to admit to setting up an account with false details.

I'd call that more than a bit dodgy myself.  

[the2numpties]

I agree that Asian Sellers are a part of the problem....but only to a point.

That does not explain how the had the Age Demographic (age & date of birth) of our fake Mr Wan Ker...that info is only provided on your eBay and Paypal account information and not provided to Sellers.

That what concerns me the greatest...how did that information get out there????

Since eBay employee's monitor these forums, perhaps they would like to step in and provide an answer.

For us it's proven a point, that being, one way or another this information could have only come from eBay and or Paypal.

I only a buy a few items off eBay these days anyway, but only buy from local Sellers unless it's a foreign Seller I've used before & trust.

[cq_tech]

I believe the exercise would have been far more telling had the OP simply created the accounts then made no transactions whatsoever. Under those conditions I suspect the results would have been considerably different.

[the2numpties]

As somebody whose made more than 8000 posts, I would have thought you'd have clearly seen the purpose of the exercise was to confirm my fears over eBay and or Paypal confidential information being on-sold, leaked or whatever.

Instead you appear a very blinded one person cheer squad for eBay.

BTW, there is no need to make personal comments about people.

[phorum_junkie*]

Well the numpty award is usually hard earned, not just taken off your own bat but that aside ebay give sellers your info, of course they do so how are they failing in their duty to stop cold callers. It is not a fair test unless you purchase from a lot of companies and see if the same thing happens or, as somebody else said, create the account but don't buy anything.

Looks like it is time to start listing tin foil hats again, they used to be very popular on the old boards.