New Ebay Scam

[natalie]

Not really sure if this is the correct place to put this so please feel free to move it.

Just had an email claiming to be from another ebay member asking a question about an item.

I have nothing for sale but thought maybe there was some mistake and clicked on the link (stupid I know!!) and almost logged in but stopped just in time.


Just be aware the scammers have a new method

[tempest]

Post it all over. The more know about quick scams the better.

[kaysamoly]

I had an e-mail from paypal saying they had sent a payment of £400 dollars in exchange for a watch which was being mailed to america which I hadn't purchased. It then said if the payment was not authorised to click on link this link took me to a page asking name address and bank details including ATM pin code luckly I realise this was a scam but other people might not stop to think before filling all these details in.

[seylectric]

Had loads of these.

The best way to be safe is to check your "My messages" on the ebay site, there should be a copy of the email in there. If there isn't, it's a scam.

I may be wrong but I think you can turn off email notifications, if so (and you do) then any emails you get of this nature must be fakes.

[heppy23]

I ignore all emails from paypal and ebay.
I go into both sites a few times a week and if there is something important it will be there.

[Whisperwolf]

This kind of email is called "physhing" and it's VERY popular.

It works like this: The gang behind the scam goes to the target site (for example Ebay). They copy graphics and layouts from the site to make their clone look as authentic as possible, and it's always the signin page that they copy. Then they send out spam to thousands of email addresses claiming to be from Ebay (or whoever) and saying that for some reason, the users details have been lost/damaged/compromised/need updating or whatever excuse they can dream up.

The user visits their clone site, thinking that it's the original, signs on (thereby giving their login details) and gets routed to a page thanking them, whereupon they are dumped at the LEGITIMATE page so as not to arouse suspicion. By this time it's too late, as they've already given the scammers the information they need to log in as the legitimate user.

So, what can you do to prevent this?

Some brief safety tips:

Organisations that have your details, don't need them again. This is a golden rule. Should there be a problem, you'll hear about it on the news ("Ebay have lost a laptop with a thousand users' account details on it" - haven't ever heard of this happening yet... guess they don't leave their accounts so insecure!) and NOT by an email. So, if someone emails you asking for your details, be suspicious immediately. If your bank has an issue with security, they will ALWAYS ask you to sort it out by visiting a branch, and will often re-issue a password that a computer has chosen from random characters, rather than ask you to logon with your details and change the password yourself.

Look for the magic "S" - on secure sites, where your details are encrypted, the addresses begin "https://" and not "http://" - the s stands for secured, and secured means the site is trackable. Scammers hate it for that reason, it makes the chances of someone catching them a LOT higher. If you use the excellent Mozilla Firefox browser instead of Internet Explorer, visiting a secure site causes the navigation bars background to change from white to yellow. On internet explorer a yellow "locked padlock" symbol appears on the status bar at the bottom of the screen. IF YOU DON'T SEE THIS your connection is NOT secure; don't give any private details to insecure sites.

DON'T BE FOOLED if the site looks authentic. The more authentic it looks, the more people are likely to be fooled by the scam. If you have bookmarks for logging in to the organisation concerned, and are worried then USE THE BOOKMARK stored in your browser, NOT the link in an email.

Finally, the biggest giveaways are numeric addresses. Compare what you're seeing with where the link goes. Hover your cursor over the link in a suspicious email, because doing so makes that link's target appear at the bottom left of the screen. So, if the link in the email reads "https://login.ebay.co.uk" but you hover your pointer over it and the bottom left says "http://82.10.59.218/login/ebay.co.uk" then the link is spoofed (not accurate) - remember that the blue text you see as a link in an email message can be forged. Look at the email notifications from this group, you can see that the address in the blue link and the address at the bottom left are the same (some browsers may not be able to show the entire link if the screen resolution is low, but the initial site information should be identical)

IF YOU GET A PHYSHING EMAIL then either ignore it completely, delete it, or do what I do - forward it to the abuse section of whoever it claimed to come from. You can usually find these details very quickly by visiting the site concerned and searching for the term "fraudulent emails" UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you give any details to these scammers, because they can do serious damage if left unchecked.

[clairus99]

I've had a few of these too. It's quite a good scam.

If you get ANYTHING from eBay that looks suspicious or unexpected, delete immediately, open a new browser and log into your eBay account from there. You get copies of any emails in your inbox there, and of course, you're unlikely to find one of these emails in there....

simple.

[nij4t2]

Originally Posted by Whisperwolf

Finally, the biggest giveaways are numeric addresses. Compare what you're seeing with where the link goes. Hover your cursor over the link in a suspicious email, because doing so makes that link's target appear at the bottom left of the screen. So, if the link in the email reads "https://login.ebay.co.uk" but you hover your pointer over it and the bottom left says "http://82.10.59.218/login/ebay.co.uk" then the link is spoofed (not accurate) - remember that the blue text you see as a link in an email message can be forged. Look at the email notifications from this group, you can see that the address in the blue link and the address at the bottom left are the same (some browsers may not be able to show the entire link if the screen resolution is low, but the initial site information should be identical)

Also, beware of website addresses that are designed to fool you... like:
www.barclays.co.uk.blah.r u/something_else
the first part of the address looks like it is legitimate... but the '.blah.ru' tells you that the site is in Russia (or wherever) - now that doesn't sound quite so appealing!

[alanfromderby]

If you receive an email that perports to come from either paypal or ebay, and you have any suspician whatsoever that it might not be genuine, this is the procedure.

1) Don't reply, and don't follow any links.
2) Forward it to either - spoof@ebay.co.uk or spoof@paypal.co.uk
3) They will then contact you and confirm if it has come from them, or not.

Don't worry about forwarding something that is genuine, in error - they would prefer that you query a post that is genuine, than be taken in by one that isn't.

[cheddar]

To be honest though, just to test them I sent a perfectly valid e-mail to eBays spoof address and they confirmed it was spoof.................

[alanfromderby]

Originally Posted by cheddar

To be honest though, just to test them I sent a perfectly valid e-mail to eBays spoof address and they confirmed it was spoof.................

Report it to ebay Customer Service.

[cheddar]

I did about 7 months ago, still waiting for a reply. If you look on the eBay community boards lots of us have done this, tis a bit worrying really.

[lise]

Hi guys,

I had an email from someone supposedly wanting price confirmation on something I was selling, that was all the message said. There was no indication of what the item number was or anything else, thought it was a dodgy scam and so I deleted it.

But the same message was also in my ebay mail box... I always thought that if it was dodgy it wouldn`t be in the ebay mail box.

I ignored the messages anyway, because I haven`t got time to search through my listings trying to figure out what someone has asked a question about, if they aren`t going to put the item number in.

Is this also a kind of scam to get people to click on certain emails/links etc or did I just have a lazy watcher/buyer?


Ps: Great site!!!!!

[Whisperwolf]

That sounds like an email sent through the ebay system, though they obviously used the wrong function. If you respond to an ebay listing with a question specifically about an item (rather than selecting general query) then Ebay itself puts the item number in the subject line.

It's possible you just had an unknowledgeable ebayer who used the "contact the seller" option instead of "ask seller about this item" but if so, it's really they're own fault and ebay won't be at all bothered if you don't want to take the time to search through every single listing to attempt to identify the one being asked about.

Items sent through the ebay system also appear in your "my ebay" mail page when you sign on to Ebay, so it's obvious that was sent through the Ebay system - just in the wrong way.

[lise]

Right ok, thanks for that. Just a lazy person then! I`ve had so many odd emails and requests from people via ebay recently, that I`m on red alert for any kind of scam.

A friend of mine had an email from ebay with a question about an item she was selling, looked ok, then sent a virus to her computer when she opened it to read it!

She wasn`t happy! Ebay can be such a useful way of making some pocket money, but like eveything it gets spoilt by a dodgy few.

[Alison82]

I always used to get them so I just forwarded them off to spoof@ebay and they would usally respond within a couple of days and say if it was or wasn't a spoof. I don't get them anyone the scamers must have figure out that I wouldn't log in through them and I'll just report them.

Just log into ebay through your address bar as normal as you should have a copy of the message there if it is for real.

[Overdrawn]

Just had a scam email saying that my eBay fees were overdue and I had to pay immediately via the link it at the bottom of the message.

I've forwarded it to the spoof desk but just thought I would alert any other ebay users of this one that is currently in circulation.