Hacked. Please help.

peacocksuit

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3
Location
UK
Hi. I have signed up for the forum to get some help.

On 9th Jan 15 I noticed a paypal email receipt email in my inbox. When I opened it I saw it was for £10 skype credit. I seldom use Skype and when I do its just for the free web cam service. I never purchase credit.
I also had an email from skype to say my purchase has been successful. Strangely the Skype account in question was one I signed up for back in 2007 and never used much. So I have to retrieve the password though my email account to get access. When I did I saw that the account has been used to make calls to a mobile phone in the Ivory coast.

What's strange is that in order to get the payment through they must ave known my paypal password as well. My paypal password gets changes regularly and was only recently changed to a new one before this happened.

I changed the passwords to all my most important stuff (email paypal etc) straight away.

What is really strange is that I have never had anything like this happen to me before, but this week I had been using a VPN for the first time (Giganews) to connect to the internet. It was a free trial so I thought I would give it a go to see what it was like, more out of curiosity than anything else. Iv stopped

Im really worried that someone had my paypal password and worry what else they might have. Am I now open to further attacks or identity theft or the likes?

I had only recently done a full refresh of my laptop and pc so I doubt it could be because of a virus.

Please advice. Thanks.
 
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You didn't write anything about if the money was actually withdrawn from paypal.
Have those 10£ actually been taken from your paypal account?
You can see that in history over purchases or transactions.
 
You didn't write anything about if the money was actually withdrawn from paypal.
Have those 10£ actually been taken from your paypal account?
You can see that in history over purchases or transactions.

Hi. The payments they made went through. When I logged in to my Paypal account they were the last 2 payments in my recent history. I flagged them up as fraudulent with Paypal which automatically triggered Skype to refund the payments. However after 'investigating' Paypal decided they did not have evidence of fraudulent activity as my Paypal was 'linked' to the Skype account and a paypent setup from years ago was used so they don't see it as fraudulent. This is is spite of the fact that the hacker would have been prompted to enter my PAYPAL password on checkout, so someone else has fraudulently used both accounts (Skype and Paypal). Paypal said I need to contact Skype to get the payment refunded. This is easier said than done, Skype's help system is dreadfully bad. They want me to 'confirm identity' on the account by filling out a long form which asks several questions that I am unable to answer. Therefore they can't take it any further. I hadn't used the Skype account in 8 years so I don't know any details for it. I can access it because I requested a change of password using my email address (which is the same one I was using back in 2007). I had no idea what the password would have been as I change them all regularly and this account was from years ago.

There are a few things which don't add up. Why didn't the hacker's change my password once they had access to the account to prevent me from accessing it? Why if they had my Paypal password did they only use it to buy credit for s Skype account? And why and how did they use a Skype account that had been dormant for years when I have had more recent ones?

I think my security may have been compromised by 1 of 2 things: a virus I had on my desktop a little while ago which I ended up having to format the hard drive to get rid of. OR, it is something to do with connecting to the internet using a VPN which I did for the first time last week. it seems too much of a coincidence for this too have happened at almost the exact time when I used a VPN.
 
strange as it is I have a hard time believing that it's a hacker. He would have done more than what he did (as you said yourself).
I think it's more likely technical error, user error or that you infact did make that phone call at some point.... still odd that the payment was accepted without your approval... i don't know.
This is all rather strange. Can't help you. sorry.
 
I don't have any friends in the Ivory Coast. I think I'd remember making such a call, let alone 10 of them to the same cell phone! skype credit is something which I never purchase as I have no need to.

My main concern now is if I was hacked, what other details they might have. But I'm starting to wonder if this was the result of some kind of technical error, myself. It just all seems too strange. Why go to all that effort just to make a few mobile phone calls? If it was a technical glitch I doubt Id ever get them to investigate, less so still to admit to it.

If anyone else has any more ideas please share.

Thanks.
 
As Biker Echo said, it must be someone close. But close does not always mean someone you know...
When is the last time you signed into your account on Paypal? That answer will provide us or at least me with the basics on what happened.

Please remember, I am not asking the date that this happened on, I am asking when the last time you signed into paypal was, and how often you do...
 
A few things here.

1. Not sure how the laws work in the UK, but in the States the consumer is protected. Call the bank (if this is the same) and tell them it was fraud. They will return the funds at the expense of paypal. Then however, you have to deal with Skype and Paypal.

I would file a complaint with the better business bureau (bbb.org). Horrible way of handling it, but I guarantee someone will contact you to get it resolved.

2. It probably was an attacker (hacker). The smarter ones tend to take very little, but they take very little from many, thus reducing the likelihood of large scale attention. If they knew two passwords, I would imagine they know your email password (just tripped the reset and checked your email). Change the password and to something longer than 16 characters if you can. Length > Complexity
 
Hmm, I'm thinking key logger here. It would explain a great many things. It's not hard to change passwords an the likes, then deleting your e-mail if they have your e-mail login details (likely if there's a keylogger on your system.

Have you installed any questionable software? What about anti-virus and the likes? Has the machine been acting differently?
 
My paypal password gets changes regularly and was only recently changed to a new one before this happened.

As the reply above mentions, it could be a keylogger. It could also be that you were "phished". What opted you to change the Paypal password? If it was an email that came in, you were phished.

If that is indeed the case, I'll provide further details.
 
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