...
Can you give an example?
All I know is that "they" were able to reach an old account (eBay), mess with the email (a mix of two real email addresses) and proceed to authorize a pre-authorized payment.
eBay don't even have a clue on how it was carried out.

As I said, my comments were not applicable to the spoofiing of some business' account which led to your having gotten ripped off. My comments were of a more general cautionary nature regarding the payment agent's automated response. Read the terms and conditions on any payment agent's website for examples. If they authorize such payments, use the word, "arbitration", or provide authority to act on your behalf without your knowledge, don't do business with them. People get sucked in by offers of convenience. Life isn't convenient, and anyone who offers you convenience is going to want their pound of flesh sooner or later, and the courts are set up to do collections, not justice.

[dipo 1]

Sooo, having read all of the above, and somewhat skittish now is there a safe (?) payment site out there? I buy a lot on ebay and PayPal has and/or is touting the safety of using them. As always respect all of your opinions.

Sooo, having read all of the above, and somewhat skittish now is there a safe (?) payment site out there? I buy a lot on ebay and PayPal has and/or is touting the safety of using them. As always respect all of your opinions.

In the U.S.:

1. Deal with people you "know" and have reason to trust. E.g., people who have a posting history on this site, and some good feedback. Brick and mortar stores and some history in the market (fly-by-nights who rent space for a few months and then vanish don't have any history).
2. Where corporate entities are involved, check where they're from and look at websites for states' secretaries of state or local tax assessors to see whether they're actually properly chartered and doing business. You'd be surprised how many "companies" don't actually exist.
3. USPS money orders - no tracing back to your bank account, verifiable, immediately good as cash on receipt, and replaceable if stolen or lost in the mail. Downside: immediately good as cash on receipt and irrevocable.
4. debit cards issued by a federally-insured bank and used as credit cards - the Fair Credit Protection Act gives you sixty days from the date of a statement on which a charge appears to back out the charge for nondelivery, fraud, etc. Never authorize automatically recurring transactions, and tell the bank you want to "opt out of overdraft protection" (which limits any charge to the amount you've actually got in the bank account - it doesn't involve fees, though the banks state it as if it did - they'll tell you about the horrible risk of a transaction being declined because of insufficient funds, which is exactly what you want to happen if someone on the other end decides to charge you $2000 instead of $200.)

[dipo 1]

Thanks always good advice on the forum, and yes i will be very careful on the web.

[jpzk]

As I said, my comments were not applicable to the spoofiing of some business' account which led to your having gotten ripped off. My comments were of a more general cautionary nature regarding the payment agent's automated response. Read the terms and conditions on any payment agent's website for examples. If they authorize such payments, use the word, "arbitration", or provide authority to act on your behalf without your knowledge, don't do business with them. People get sucked in by offers of convenience. Life isn't convenient, and anyone who offers you convenience is going to want their pound of flesh sooner or later, and the courts are set up to do collections, not justice.

I got that, no problem.
But when you deal with "Big" entities such as eBay and Paypal, you expect that things will go smoothly "as usual"; I have dealt with eBay with no issues in the past but this time it was an obvious hacking with which they could do nothing about.
Seems that you have a handle on all of this, good for you.