Fraudsters hijack Currys PC World's eBay, over 600 customers scammed

Criminals were able to change payment details on several eBay listings, enabling them to siphon money from unwitting customers who paid for goods via a PayPal account. PayPal enables customers to send and receive money via an email address. The fraudsters used an email address that looked almost identical to Currys PC World's real account.

After accessing the retailer's eBay account, they replaced the real email on listings with a fake one. Shoppers who thought they were paying Currys PC World for their goods were instead sending money to the fraudsters, according to BBC.

The attack happened on the weekend of October 19-20, 2019, affected around 600 customers, and potentially cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Currys PC World representatives expressed disappointment on what happened and they plan to work with eBay to investigate the matter. Currys PC World, eBay and PayPal said all affected customers would be refunded.