Skype ignores PayPal-siphoning hijack scheme

The phone company without a phone

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.

"Basically, you get a generic email saying 'Sorry you're having problems with Skype, we'll try to solve the problem,'" says Dave Ballard, a Newfoundland, Canada-based graphics artist, whose account has been inaccessible for five weeks. The eBay powerseller adds: "This is just not right because it's costing me thousands of dollars."

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