Excuse me as I vent….but three weeks ago, as many of you have read, I began trying to sell my beloved camera on eBay. Unfortunately, as soon as I completed my listing and clicked “list item” my account was suspended. Interestingly, I didn’t know my account was suspended until I went to search for the listing and couldn’t find it so I contacted eBay via e-mail. I received a response from eBay Security that asked me to log into Live Help.

Live Help told me that as soon as I listed my item someone (unknown to me) accessed my account and listed several auction items. Because of this, they asked me to prove that I was the rightful owner of the account and that I am me. I’ve never had to prove I am me before. Most people just take my word for it, after all, how many people really want to be me, right? Anyway, they asked me to send them government issued ID. They asked for only one but I sent them my expired driver’s license (for the safety of others I no longer drive ;-), my passport and a copy of my apartment lease. They said these weren’t good enough that I had to send them a copy of my utility bill. Grrrrr. My utilities are included in the rent! They said until I could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was me that my account would remain suspended. I have a feeling that even if I’d sent them a utility bill eBay security would still want DNA.

Trust me; I’m not upset with eBay or their security. During the past 3 weeks I’ve found that their security is excellent but when I tell them I’m me, send a driver’s license, passport and copy of my lease, drawn up and signed by an attorney…trust me…I’m me! I’m stressed, irritated and pissed that someone out there (in NIGERIA) has turned my normally tranquil life upside down.

Because I really need to sell my camera before I upgrade I decided to sell on the Latin America eBay, MercadoLibre. Granted, my Spanish is less than fluent but with freetranslation dot com I was able to get my camera listed. Oh, joy!

What was better than getting my camera listed was that within hours I had someone that wanted to buy it for more than the auctioned price. They told me that they would pay me a fair amount over the beginning bid. This was very cool. How many of us would prefer to just sell our item straight out than wait a week for everyone to bid on it? Plus, I’m not a Turbo Lister with eBay. I’m just a normal person that uses eBay to check values and buy & sell once in a while. I don’t have a real, Internet, or eBay store…I just buy and sell what I need or want.

My husband told me to be careful because something about the e-mail on MercadoLibre was weird. He even told me that he suspected where the e-mail came from. The ‘lady’ told me to ship the item to her nephew they were visiting on holiday as soon as possible. It was to be a gift for him. She told me that she had already contacted PayPal and that they would hold my payment until I sent them the confirmation that the camera had been shipped. She was very nice and explained that this was for her protection, as well as mine. I went on to tell the lady that before I could do anything I needed the mailing address to estimate the shipping costs. It was when she sent me the shipping address…that the other shoe dropped. The address was NIGERIA.

Please, please, please…if you get nothing out of this post but this…please, do not ever respond to, mail, to or talk to anyone from NIGERIA. The country is nothing but trouble for the entire world. I am serious as a heart attack. Every scam, every spam, ever plea for money and now eBay…starts in NIGERIA.

Needless to say, I sent a short, not-nice e-mail to the person and reported them to PayPal and MercadoLibre (the Latin American Ebay).

Please let me say that I am not proficient in eBay (or MercadoLibre) or the art of eBay and there’s so much information on the eBay website its difficult to comprehend it all just to sell a few items here and there. There was never a thought in my head that MercadoLibre/Ebay would still not get their percentage of the sale.

Yes, you’d think my story stopped here, wouldn’t you? Nope. There’s more….

Yes, I’m still suspended from eBay and my item never did sell on MercadoLibre but I did create another account on eBay. It meant that I wouldn’t have a selling or buying track record but I’d hoped that people would find me honest and ask questions if they needed to. Well, guess what…within hours of listing my camera under my new user name I received an e-mail from someone offering to buy my camera for a little over the opening bid…again. This time, I reported the e-mail right away and didn’t respond. See, I do learn ;-).

Sadly, my camera didn’t sell. I was asking a great price for it but there’s too many ‘merchants’ out there willing to give away the store that I probably didn’t have a chance. However, when the auction for my camera was over yesterday I went ahead and relisted it for a lower, rock-bottom price that I could afford. If you’re inclined to take a look, it’s item # 170228088392. You’ll never guess in a million years, what happened just after the listing went live. Well, maybe you will. I got another e-mail from another eBay username asking to sell my camera for an amount just over the opening bid.

Now, I ask you, how stupid are these people in NIGERIA? They use a different eBay username but the same e-mail addresses to correspond to? They tried to scam me 3 previous times on the same camera with identical listings and think I am so stupid I don’t know by now what they’re up to?

Before I let go of this situation, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few of the tell-tale signs of a scam with eBay or PayPal. They are mentioned all over both sites but until a scam slaps us in the face we don’t think about it.

• Know eBay’s policy on contacting someone outside of the eBay network.
• Only contact a seller or buyer within eBay’s e-mail network, no exception.
• Know PayPal’s payment and money transfer policies.
• Know PayPal’s method of contacting you.
• Know how PayPal addresses you as a client, including spacing, font size and font type on their stationary.
• PayPal will NEVER contact you at an address other than the one you tell them to, no exception.
• NEVER - EVER send money or products without payment IN ADVANCE.

Thankfully, eBay and PayPal have their security methods set up for a reason. Don’t find out the hard way what they are.

Sadly, I’m wondering just how many people have been scammed by this country. We have world wars over religion, politics, and money…why don’t we, as a world, do something about this one country that is out to scam the rest of us?

Please, people in Nigeria…get a life…better yet…get a job!

~ Diana

I’m even more convinced than ever that Internet Explorer is the root of many Internet problems.

Last week, I tried to list my Canon EOS 20D camera for sale on Ebay. Simple, right? Wrong. I listed it, all right, but it never showed up. Ugh! Naturally, I went through their site to find out why my camera wasn’t showing up. My personal page didn’t’ even show that I was selling an item, let alone selling a camera. However, I had an e-mail from Ebay that my account had been suspended because of something I couldn’t comprehend at the time. You can only imagine what I was thinking. Why on earth would Ebay suspend my account? They did leave a note that I could chat-live with them, so you know I did. It didn’t matter if it was Midnight or 10AM; I needed to find out what happened to my account. It’s not like I do a lot of business with them but I have purchased a few items here and there from them and have even sold a couple of things.

Seems that somehow my keystrokes were being copied and someone used my login to create several auctions, on my behalf. They thought that I possibly had spyware or a virus in my computer that allowed access to my information.

At first, I was a little taken back but no big deal. Ebay’s security was on it and I could rest easily and my camera would be back on the site, soon to be sold. Not. The security center had me verify some information which would have been cool except…they went so far back in time that not even my mother would have remembered it. Still, it was for security reasons. I told the guy my life story and finally whatever I told him answered his question and he was sure I was me. I wasn’t, but he was. LOL

So now that I’ve answered all his questions, I go to bed knowing that the next day my camera would be listed. Low and behold, I got busy with my blogs (this one in fact) and never checked my account Saturday. It wasn’t until yesterday that I finally got to it. Ugh! Still, it’s not listed. Still, my account is suspended for a month. All right, now this is bordering on being a pain-in-the-neck! All I want to do is be a normal person, sell my camera on a website, mail the camera, collect my money and go about being normal. But…nope, not going to happen.

Sunday afternoon I proceed to go back onto the chat-live with Ebay again. This person doesn’t ask my life story but now, they want to confirm that I am me with copies of my ID’s. No, they said I can’t e-mail them, which you all know is very easy for me. I need to fax them. I don’t have a fax machine. It’s a miracle I have Internet let alone a fax. So, they tell me I can mail the documents. From where I live, to mail documents to Ebay would take over a month for them to get the papers.

It’s at this point I tell the guy, Jeremy, that something I didn’t do and am trying to fix is bordering on being a pain just so I can sell a camera when they already have the situation fixed. Well, he proceeds to tell me nothing can be done until the documents are received, thanks me for contacting them and closes the window. Is that like a hang-up call?

After I collect a few thoughts, I realize that because Jeremy closed my window so I don’t have the fax number, the address to mail the information to and can’t find the information on their website so…I need to chat-live, again. I’m getting good at this by now. I’m so proud ;-).

This time, I’m fortunate enough to talk with Patch. Nice guy. I get the information I need and no one hangs up on anyone. All ends well. My neighbor has a fax machine and I faxed what they asked for within minutes. Hopefully, sometime in the next 24-72 hours my account will be restored and I’ll be selling my camera. Any bidders? Call or e-mail me. I’m serious!

As the story continues, today I’m building a weblog for my son’s new Firestone store. I hope he likes it. He’s so into customer service having a blog is the next step in being there for his customers. As I’m going through template ideas I see this note on one:

“I noticed you are using Internet Explorer. If you did not know already: Internet Explorer does not display this site correctly, mostly due to the inability of Microsoft to comply with web standards. More importantly Internet Explorer is susceptible to viruses, and spyware because Microsoft has problems patching Internet Explorer in a timely manner. So I highly recommend, a safe, more standards compliant browser such as Mozilla Firefox.”

My little brain starts spinning with this message…Ebay told me it was spyware that caused my account with them to be corrupted. I use Firefox for all my blogging now but…not my normal e-mail, Ebay, or other transactions. Yep! This was it. Internet Explorer allowed my information to be taken from me without my permission causing my account to be frozen. Who knows what else they could have had access to before I changed all my passwords and stopped using IE?

At this exact moment, I’m not sure if I’m angry or relieved. Angry someone stole my account from me causing havoc in my normally tranquil life or relieved no more was taken. Jeeez. Drama-drama-drama

First, “Thank you, Ebay, for your security and helping me resolve the problem so quickly. It was a pain, but less painful than coming up with money I shouldn’t owe.”

Second, if you use Internet Explorer, no matter how many firewalls or virus protections you have on your computer…you’re not safe. I have the firewall and protection I need but if you’re using a browser that allows someone to track your keystrokes…all the protection in the world isn’t going to help. It’s kind of like on one of the first Seinfeld episodes when his apartment is broken into. He didn’t need insurance since he had the best lock on the market, the Clapto D29. It only had one design flaw…in order for the lock to work the door had to be shut. In order for your computer to be protected you can’t leave the door open through Internet Explorer.

Enjoy your day and if you are interested in a great camera, call me!

~ Diana

A young couple in the Bavarian town of Krumbach posted an ad on Ebay: “Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller”. OMG! They offered to sell the child for one euro ($1.57 USD).

I’m unsure if the shock of selling a child on Ebay has me crazy or the fact that these two young people don’t have another living soul on earth to help them with their parenting skills. This couple isn’t in their teens either but in the mid-20’s. Please, help me here. Even if this was a joke…how can you play a joke on a child’s life? There’s a test required for the privilege of driving…but no test for the privilege of raising a child. Hmmm

I’ll just bet some of the mommies and daddies in China that lost their only child in the earthquake  last week would give a million dollars to have their child back…crying or not, and this couple sells their baby for less than the cost of a cup of coffee.

I’m looking for answers here. Does anyone have any?

~ Diana