This is a definite first for me, having been using eBay for a good number of years to sell & buy, I have seen, heard and witnessed it all! Please do remember what I have written is from my own past experiences, not to claim that any of it is professional advice nor backed legally, just some of the horrific scams that are out there and just my own personal take on all this cyber shopping.

Over the years I have as many of you also have seen, great many things happen in the good old world of shopping. Gone are the days that you need to trudge down to the shops when you want to buy something, although the appeal of the shops is also there, but now we have been given the choice of buying from the comfort of our own home, wrapped up in a dressing gown, browsing at John Lewis with a hot mug of tea in hand anytime day or night! For me, internet shopping has become an absolute GOD SEND, what with 2 growing children, full time business to run, it is difficult to think back to the days when this did not exist.

With all things good, comes all things bad....fact of life, the balance of nature, the Yin & Yang of the world as my late father would say. As with anything that is openly available to all, there comes the very few that spend their whole lives in trying to inject bad and evil, you could call it paranoia, but I have heard some horror stories, done 'time' with my own horrific incidents, and most of the time, as the old saying goes, 'you never thought it could happen to you!', but dear folks, it does!

Flash back to when I was abroad, at the hotel, plugged in to log onto my emails, jet lagged and head a little fuzzy as am trying to run a business on a business trip, half way around the other side of the world, so am not feeling 100% me. Look at my emails and shock horror, I have an alert from Paypal, 'account suspended', I hurry and scan the email, tells me to take action and log onto my account - CLICK - page jumps to the paypal log in, I rush to enter my details, username, password, and am in my account. I scan the page, looks all legit, is paypal, until I go to click on 'my profile' and nothing happens. Usually, these links on the page are encrypted to you jump to another section. So thinking this is a small glitch, I go to click on 'resolution centre' again nothing happens. Then alarm bells ring, there you have it, I had just fallen victim to a 'phising' email. In a panic I close the page, actually go to the paypal website to log in, NO OPEN ISSUES with my account! Further adding to the panic I go to change my details, but I need my card as security, but this card was back home, in the UK. Thankfully, my sister was house-sitting so she ran to get the card and I managed to get all of it changed in no time at all.

How stupidly easy it was, after years and years of getting such emails, it happened to me!