VOIP and SIP News

Right, I know a lot of people hate Microsoft but this is getting ridiculous.

Today my Skype account was hacked and the malicious party rinsed that and my paypal account of nearly 100 Euros.

Every time I log into Skype it shows that someone is making calls to weird looking numbers that start +20169 and +996504 (anyone with info on these numnbers please do tell). So far about 30 calls ahve been made to these numbers even though I have changed my password.

Paypal stopped the unauthorised Skype payment agreement that had been set up. I have since had emails from Skype saying that they are looking into it and have charged back the payments. Yet my account is still appearing empty.

Then I received the following email which looks suspicious:

Hello Robert,

Thank you for contacting Skype Customer Service.
We understand your concerns regarding the charges on your account. We are happy to help you with that.

Upon checking ou records, we can seen that your order on Jun 16, 2011 with Order Number: , is €25,000 Skype credit. Also, the status of this order is charged_back not delivered.

You can review all your orders and their status in the My Account section of our store:
https://secure.skype.com/store/myaccount/orders.html
Also, according to the information provided to us by the payment provider, one of the orders has been charged back, credits reversed and your account blocked in order to verify the payment.

We automatically block users with a charge back status to protect the assets of our customers. A charge back may indicate unauthorized use of a Skype account. In most cases, this is a result of an error in the payment process and the issue should be resolved with the payment provider.

If the chargedback order was placed via Click and Buy or Paypal
Please contact their customer support to review the payment and account detail on their side. In most cases the error in payment process (for example, insufficient funds on your Paypal account) can be corrected and the chargeback status reversed.

When the issues are resolved on the side of the payment provider, your Skype account will become active again without needing any further action on our behalf.

If the credits were ordered with a credit card
Please contact the financial institution to learn why a payment dispute was initiated.

We also need to verify the credit card details before we can re-activate the Skype account. We request the following information from you:
the first six and the last four digits of the credit card used to make your Skype purchase (NOTE: Please do NOT send your full credit card number)
the name of the cardholder written on the card
the issuing country of the card
If you believe that your Skype account has been accessed by a third party and the payments have been placed without your authorization
Please reply to this email and we will start an investigation into this matter.
Should you need more assistance, feel free to contact us again.
Best regards,

Pauline Ann R.
Skype Customer Service



I have blanked out the order number for safety. So this email is asking for credit card details and mentions a chargeback of 25,000 Euros. Very dodgy! Of course phoning Skype and speaking to a real person is nigh on impossible. Please comment if anyone has had a similar experience. Skype is now officially dead to me!