eBay said a report that its database had been hacked by fraudsters was untrue.

An article on the News24.com Web site (http://digbig.com/4bkye) reported Monday that a South African police inspector said members of the Nigerian 419 syndicate had hacked into eBay's database. eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy said, "eBay's database was not hacked, eBay's credit card database has never been hacked, and it was not hacked here. We are in constant communication with the U.S. Secret Service, they have not contacted us, and we have not heard from South African police."

Durzy also said eBay is skeptical of the methods used by the site reporting the supposed incident, 419legal.org site. "The site asks people to input their credit card numbers to see if they are part of a database of stole credit card numbers," said Durzy. He said this method is not good practice on the Internet.