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Quote:One day last month, when Klaus Zimmerman tried to log into his Skype account, he got an error message indicating his username and password didn't match. Concerned something was awry, Zimmerman, a computer repairman living in Wexford County, Ireland, phoned his brother and asked him to check his online status.

"I saw you on earlier, but your picture was gone," the brother reported. "You're now listed as living in Germany." On top of that, the person logged in was no longer answering the brother's queries.

Forum threads here, here and here and Google searches here and here suggest Zimmerman's experience is by no means unusual. The Register has contacted many victims, and a common pattern has emerged. Around the same time the victims are locked out of their accounts, they receive emails indicating their PayPal accounts are being charged for funds that are credited to the purloined Skype accounts. Frantic emails reporting the problem remain unanswered for weeks or months by Skype and PayPal representatives...

Quote:Online payment service PayPal has had an exploit on its hands for at least 16 months and counting, and seems to have no resolution for it. A tipster forwarded us screenshots of the fraud, which involves a dummy subscription service to PayPal's sister company Skype, all part of the eBay corporate family. Using the fake Skype subscription, several small charges are made against a PayPal account, all in the same dollar amount...