I honestly don’t know what to do anymore and was hoping someone here might have advice.
I’m a student in Germany and in February 2026 I apparently became a victim of a phishing scam connected to eBay. I was trying to activate secure payment on eBay and got redirected to a page where I had to enter my bank details. The page said a “test charge” would be made to verify my account.
In my credit card app I confirmed the transaction because I assumed it was just a small verification charge. Later I discovered that €2500 had actually been charged to my credit card at Hotelgiftcard.com.
I immediately contacted my bank, but they refuse to refund the money because technically I confirmed the transaction in the app. The gift card provider told me that the order has already been fully spent.
I have already reported the case to the police, but honestly I don’t have much hope that anything will come from it.
I feel very stupid that I fell for that because now looking at the page I got redirected to, it’s so obvious that it’s a scam. I just didn’t think about it since I got redirected from eBay and well… I trusted eBay.
As a student, €2500 is an enormous amount of money for me and the situation is really stressful. Has anyone experienced something similar or know if there is anything else I can do?