Thanks alot, ebay :evil:

[donovan_ns]

So... mad.

After an hour, and two password changes, I've figured out what ebay is doing...

They FAIL the first login attempt (without the captcha), EVERY TIME. I've even copied the password and paste it into the password, so I know it's not a typo. On the page with the captcha, I can always successfully login.

So, essentially, I have no way to login to Gixen. GRRRRRRRRRRRR!
What a waste of some of my Saturday evening... I would go through the routine of changing my password, then try Gixen, it wouldn't work. So I'd logout of ebay and try to login again, and they'd fail the password on their own site. I'm so annoyed right now... Geez!

Thanks ebay!

[mario]

Try to login several time over the course of few days - captchas should eventually stop.

[donovan_ns]

Yes, I decided to pester some poor ebay Live Help person over this...

See the bold for the acknowledge of the problem, which I fully suspected going into this...

[mario]

Thank you Donovan...

This confirms that eBay does have some automated security measures that are out of reach for CSRs to disable / reset. Unfortunately, it doesn't help your situation at all - except to understand that, since they are automated, they may go away over some time period.

If they decide to introduce captcha on a regular basis for all the users, they will kill sniping all together.

[Gixen]

[025276ul]

fun thing this it seems that everything seems like the nightmare He had that I had
not that I'm a cynic! by thinking ebay may have / will have thier own snipe feature but what away to get rid of the competition

[Cupid]

[juangrande]

I have to believe this has nothing to do with sniping per se. If it did, one would expect this would be happening to everyone using Gixen. I think this just reflects that eBay is finally trying to implement some security measures to cut down on the incidence of hacked accounts. Unfortunately, users who bid with Gixen (or other sniping services) end up being caught in the "crossfire", so to speak. It is, of course, really frustrating for anyone caught up with this, but if eBay were ever able to effectively lock out the hackers, it would be a much nicer place for all of us.

I agree with Mark: it makes no sense for eBay to shut down sniping services. It would hit their bottom line too hard.

By the way: Welcome back, Mark!


_________________
John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

[nochkin]

Just my 2 cents...
From my own experience eBay may put captcha when your password is too simple (contains dictionary word, contains part or the whole user id).

In ideal, your password has to be alpha-numerical without containing any parts of your user id. You can also put dashes just to make it more secure.

If you temp password did not work also, that means they put a block on this account for "security measure".
I would suggest to open another account if you don't care about your feedback. Or maybe another account just for sniping as I suggest to many people.

[Cupid]

I agree that multiple eBay accounts can be usefull for a number of reasons. In this case if you have trouble with one and have another that could be used as a work around while the first account is unusable for automated sniping.

nochkin may also be correct about when such measures are triggered, however I also think the above story is from someone that would be well aware of password security and the need to obfuscate... so I agree with John that the application to some accounts is probably due to evidence that eBay have that hackers are increasingly automating their activities.

Its not fool proof against hackers though is it?. It only stops AUTOMATED processes from accessing an account once the password is compromised, I think perhaps eBay would be better advised to restrict access from suspect IP addresses than from using these measures, but what do I know its their game after all.

Of course eBay would need to assure that they did not restrict access from legitimate sniping services. I think perhaps their first attempt at this may have occured a few months ago when gixen did have some problems with captcha screens for many users, for a few hours. Surely eBay must be able to detect where legitimate sniping services are located and destinguish these from hacking activities... and if they really don't know how to do that I'm sure that either Mario or myself could give them some advice on what algorithms they should implement... I suspect my consultancy rate might be a bit higher than Marios though, hes more willing to donate his time for less reward than I am!
_________________
Mark