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Sunday, November 04, 2007

Round and Round


There were fun art plans for today but....

I spent hours late last night and again today fixing a problem with my eBay account. I sat the account up earlier this year to bid on one item, and haven't used it since, which is probably what attracted some nasty person to it. After posting here last night I checked e-mail to find 23 messages from eBay. Seems my account was "compromised" at about 6 pm last night, and within 5 hours "I" had bid on all kinds of cell phones and computers. The folks at eBay were VERY responsive to me when I contacted them via Live Chat and got it straightened out, but there were still more bids out there that had to be corrected this morning. Last night I had to change all my passwords for eBay AND for my e-mail account. I also changed passwords for several other user accounts out there ... just in case. Who knows how these creeps did what they did. I do know how to create strong passwords, these guys just lucked out or something.

Lesson learned -- Change your passwords fairly often, especially on important accounts. If you don't know how to create a strong password, read up on it and be sure you do. It ought to be a mix of upper and lower case, with some numbers and/or special characters thrown in, so a password like I'm2Tired4This! would probably be a good one. Also change your "secret questions" and pay attention to notices that you get. Also be warned that there are eBay "spoof" sites out there, so it's not a bad idea to review their security measures.

Other note -- since I never eBay anyway (and I'm NOT downing them -- they have done a great job helping me with this!) I decided to close my account with them. Little did I know that having an eBay account was a bit like getting married. You can set one up in a matter of moments -- it may take up to 180 days to close one. Wow.

I'm going to work on my flip flop painting for a bit tonight. I'm still not ready to show it. Instead, for your viewing pleasure, here is a shot of the carousel at Dollywood. It is a fantastical creation! Teri -- you would love this if you ever get to this area -- and hey, Diahn, the rooster is for you!
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4 comments:

annie said...

Oh, I love carousels!

Sorry about the Ebay woes, and glad they were able to help you get things resolved. What a mess.

Teri said...

I can fully identify with you about ebay. I had a similiar problem but people actually broke into my credit card! The cc company reimbursed me and then I not only closed the card, I cancelled ebay and have not been back! Too scary and dangerous.

MD said...

That carousel is a dream. My daughter and I always go on carousels whenever we come across them. They're kind of magical.
What a lot of hooha with ebay, you poor thing.
Glad it got sorted.
MD

Unknown said...

Oh, good grief. I'm glad ebay was helpful to you - that's rare enough these days. But what a pain.

Lovely carousel - LOVE the rooster!