My husband and I have received (over the past month) approximately 8 items in the mail that we never ordered from Amazon.com. All of the items being of very minimal cost. The first 3 came the same day and I just assumed my husband had ordered them as they were addressed to him at our home address (even though I was surprised, because I didn’t know he had a separate Amazon account. We had always used mine in the past).

In fact, I through the packaging away based on those wrongful assumptions. My husband was a work at the time so I had to wait until that evening before I could give them to him. To my surprise, he told me he never ordered any of them. We immediately contacted Amazon about the concern and the agent was able to find an account opened in my husband’s name. My husband never opened account. The agent referred to it as a “dummy” account because the only information contained therein was my husband name and address for shipping purposes. No name was referenced for account holder and a credit card number which we were told was linked to Mastercard was provided for payment use. A credit card that we never applied for. The agent was able to find all the items we received listed as having been ordered from this bogus account. Even the agent couldn’t understand the benefit of someone making unauthorized charges using my husband’s name and then sending those items to my husband.

The agent gave us the Mastercard number used and we then tried to contact Mastercard about our predicament. They could not help us because they couldn’t find such an account. As a result, I thought to check my husband’s credit reports to check for any illegal activity. However, no unauthorized lines of credit were referenced. This has left us even more confused and concerned as to the benefit of anyone going to this length with nothing to gain. Approx. a week later we received 2 more items from Amazon that my husband didn’t order. A week later, 2 more and just today, another 2. All items are minimal cost; none of our financial accounts have been charged; however, I just found out last night that my e-bay account had been hacked into on August 11th and the culprits were able to charge over $1300 to my credit card and doing so by completely bypassing PayPal where all my accounts are linked.

My credit statement references all 3 unauthorized charges having been processed through Paypal; however, when I checked my Paypal account none of the illegal transactions were listed. Even worse, I only found this out by pure accident when I tried to buy something through ebay and finding out upon checkout that my account was locked. Even after calling an ebay rep to reactivate my account, they never told me about the illegal charges. I found them by looking at my purchase history on my ebay. I called ebay back immediately to ask how this could have happened and inquire why I wasn’t informed. They told me the culprit used an “app” that randomly selected numbers and letters until correct ones could be used to access ebay accounts.

This SHOULD scare anyone with an ebay account that is reading this. Ebay and Paypal are huge companies and you would think that the security measures they take when considering the amount and type of personal financial information they must protect, would have much stronger security measures in place. They also told me that they sent me an email on 8-14 advising me of the unauthorized access to my account, which I never read because I couldn’t find it in my email anywhere. But you would expect, at least I do, to receive more than a casual email from ebay after someone steals $1300 from you–not an email sent after the fact 3 days later. The rep I talked to when reactivating my account never told me anything about my account being hacked and $1300 being stolen from me.

I don’t know if this has anything to do with the Amazon mystery, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Also, around the same time, my Microsoft account was also accessed and the culprit continued to reset my password everytime I changed it due to my password not working upon my attempt to log in. People be very scared; check all your accounts routinely; change your passwords every couple of weeks never using the same one twice or at any 2 locations; if 2 step verification is available, set it up. I went one step further and have started using an authenticator app which changes your numerical passwords every 5 seconds.

It makes it more difficult to sign in to your accounts but it makes it harder to hack into them. This has been, and continues to be, an un-nerving experience and it’s still not over and little has been determined as to whom and why anyone would do these things. Luckily ebay and paypal have unauthorized purchase guarantees, so we will eventually get our money back that was stolen, but the headache and stress all this has caused has been much worse and much harder on us.

Todays criminals are nothing short of devious and are experts and the technology game. If anyone can tell us of any scams they are aware of that are the same and/or similar to the ones I’ve stated, please let us know, as well as any benefit that could result thereof, we would sincerely appreciate your input. Thank you.

Today I received an email from UPS informing my package is scheduled for delivery tomorrow. I may have purchased 2 things from Amazon in the last 5 years. I have no receipt for whatever this package is, thinking it could be a scam I copied the tracking number went to UPS.com turns out it’s valid.

I called UPS all they could tell me that it is addressed to me, it was shipped by Amazon and had to be paid for before the 14. No one in the household has any idea about what it could be, no record of the order in my account, don’t believe it’s a gift from anyone, birthday was months ago, Christmas has already come and gone, no upcoming anniversaries, kids’ birthday not for a few months LOL I’m definitely curious and a little freaked out about whatever it could be.

I received a large package from Amazon Prime. There is a black something I have no idea what it is. I only have the number on the box : B078X84WGN What is it and what should I do with it?

The black thing has metal and is mp large at all, smaller and thinner than a pack of cigarettes.