Thread: eBay scam or what?

Its one of the reasons I like to do it.
Its the puzzle of making the machine do what I tell it to.
Guess thats why I've been a programmer/analyst for 25 years.

It used to be that kids (over 40 yr old now) used to be able to do it in their sleep.
Also change hard drives and memory and video cards etc.

The last 10 years the kids don't use them anymore, its all notebooks, xbox and Blip blip sms Mobile phones. Current generation has no hope of working on a pc anymore.

Pete

Best option is to perform a full clean install after formatting the HD.
Download cloning software ( e.g. paragon drive backup 9.0 express)to make a cloned copy of your complete HD once it is setup as you prefer, including updating windows and the antivirus.

partition the HD first, and from now on place all important files e.t.c. on the second partition, not on the partition where the programs are installed.
( this saves time later due to not having to backup the files when performing a restore)

Place the cloned copy of the first partition on a second HD, which is only used when restoring to the original HD.
now when encountering the computer running slower or other unusual events, simply reinstall the clean cloned copy back to the original HD, which usually only takes 10 minutes, saves plenty of time having to about trying to search and figure out what the problem is, and no need to ever perform another install from the DVD's.

will usually perform this once a month, as not all viruses e.t.c. are found as soon as they come out.
to make it easier for the restores had added a front rack, mounted in a spare DVD slot, to simply slide in the cloned SATA HD when needed.

Another option which could work, is to run system restore, and select a date to restore to before this problem occurred,
this would only work if system restore is turned on.
any new programs added since that date will be lost, and need to be reinstalled.
backup any important files, e.t.c. before restoring.

Hi Ken,
I suspect what you have is a master boot record (MBR) virus.
These are nasty little buggers that are generally installed by another virus and can be very tricky remove.
Unfortunately as these viruses are in the boot sector they will run before your virus scanner does and they make themselves invisible.
You can try to remove them by brute force with a program such as Combofix but as these particular viruses often encrypt the MBR (that's how they hide) you run the risk of turning your computer into a potato as the system can no longer read the MBR when the virus has been removed.
One option might be to remove your hard drive and install it into a known good machine running a good virus scanner then run a deep scan on your hard disk.
No guarantee this will help but it's worth a try.
Failing all else backup the files you want to keep to another drive, scan that drive on a known good machine and re-format and reinsall your system.
Cheers,
Greg.

Another good program is "malwarebytes" it comes highly recommended, is free and it comes with a support forum.

Hey just another thing about dodgy on-line forms. Sure you can submit an abusive message, but be careful about the "submit" button (or the cancel button, or whatever). The code behind those buttons might actually be "great go ahead and start installing a virus for me" - they don't necessarily do what the text of the button says.

Cheers - Mick

Originally Posted by WelderMick

Another good program is "malwarebytes" it comes highly recommended, is free and it comes with a support forum.

I’d second that, I got a very similar thing, I think I picked up off P.M. There were virus coming down with some of the adds.

Mine was a fake security thing. The free version of Malware bytes found it so easy, I bought the pro version out of gratitude.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

Phil.

Originally Posted by jhovel

I suggest you phone eBay. That looks like a genuine eBay page, but I wouldn't fill it in without talking to them AND then only IF IT HAS an https:// URL!
Very suspicous. Likely to be some kind of malware attempting to go phishing....
eBay need to know about this!
Joe

I very much doubt that eBay are likely to post a page with such poor english as shown on the pdf file. The sentence beginning "Your entries...." is a dead give-away that this is a scam page. The request for an ATM PIN confirms it beyond all doubt.

If you right click on the page and do a "view source" you may find some clues as to where it came from.

Ran CC Cleaner about an hour ago. Bloody cleaned out everything including all my passwords, including the Woodwork Forum. Finally have got back on.

Incidently, it did not fix my eBay problem so I'll keep trying other options.

Surprisingly, haven't heard from eBay, guess they're sleeping or tearing their hair out.

Ho hum, another ###### day, love it.

Ken

I wouldn’t have thought CCleaner would be the pick of them, for the problem you have. It doesn’t do malware. That mostly just cleans up junk files, history, cookies, history and temp files in an attempt to speed up your computer.
Phil.

I want to third or fourth or whatever Malwarebytes. If you run windows xp then there is a thing called ultimate boot disk for windows that lets you make a boot disk with virus scanners on it that you can boot to and then scan your drive. I think there are linux based boot disks that will let you scan a windows drive in a similar manner as well.

ken..before you take drastic action such as reformat try this

make sure your anti virus is upto date and also malware.

once done start up in "safe mode" and run your antivirus scanner.

Google "how to start in safe mode" and print off.

if it doesnt then you may have to take it in get some one to disinfect

but for the future, the cloning trick is good as if you do get something very malicious then a restore will almost undoubtly fix the problem very quickly.

Originally Posted by eskimo

but for the future, the cloning trick is good as if you do get something very malicious then a restore will almost undoubtly fix the problem very quickly.

For the future, buy a Mac and avoid this sort of crap altogether. My laptop has been up for over 380 days so far (time between reboots or power off).

OS X is a unix derivative operating system, not a POS like Windows. I write software for fun and money, I have absolutely no time to waste on an O/S when I know from personal experience that one can be and should be as reliable as something like a toaster or microwave oven.

PDW

Originally Posted by PDW

For the future, buy a Mac and avoid this sort of crap altogether. My laptop has been up for over 380 days so far (time between reboots or power off).

OS X is a unix derivative operating system, not a POS like Windows. I write software for fun and money, I have absolutely no time to waste on an O/S when I know from personal experience that one can be and should be as reliable as something like a toaster or microwave oven.

PDW

not every one like macs
I dont..the daughter has one..and i just hate it!!!

what do you mean when you say its been up for over 380days...its been switched on continuously for that amount of time?

Originally Posted by eskimo

not every one like macs

You just need to get used to them eskimo. I resisted for far too long (there was something about Mac people that annoyed me), but now I could never go back. They aren't perfect, but they are a million times better than a PC. I still have a PC to run the odd piece of software that won't run on my Mac. I usually fire it up about 3 days before I need to use it.

The first time you boot up a Mac and it's fully up and running in 13 seconds, you kick yourself for putting it off for so long.

Oh, and no viruses, trojans, malware.......

Originally Posted by WelderMick

Internet banking is another one. Consider this scenario: You hit your bookmark for SomeBank which has worked flawlessly for years. You get a screen that says there's been security issues and so customers are asked to verify details on login. As an additional security measure on logging in you are asked to "Get BankCode" which sends you an authentication message to your mobile phone. The bank has your mobile phone number and you don't supply it on line, so it's got to be secure right? So you hit the button, a code gets sent to your mobile, you enter it in the box and presto - you've just deposited $10,000 in somebody else's account. True story. Not me, but I was right next to the person it happened to. I can also tell you that the bank in question knew that threat was out there, but they are very hush hush because they don't wan't to give internet banking a bad name.

- Mick

Hi Welder Mick

I am very, very curious about this scenario.
Do you have any more details please ?
How does the scam website know your mobile number for the "Get Netcode" password, so that the money transfer can occur?


Oh, and I also recommend Malwarebytes (MWB) (and Avira Free Antivirus).
You may need to download MWB to a USB memory stick from a clean PC, then
use Safe Mode on your PC to run MWB from the USB, reboot, run again, then reboot.
Use MWB "Quick Scan" mode first, then "Deep Scan" (go mow the lawn, or run it overnite?) if later required.
Have used this method to successfully remove internet browser hijackers from the kids laptops, et alia.

Cheerio, mike