Getting a LOT of eBay SCAM Email!

[eugenefl]

Just a caution to you eBayers out there, I've gotten 2 different "phishing" Emails from eBay scammers. I imagine they are at work now that the holiday shopping is heating up. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE beware of *any* Email that asks you for *any* personal information. If unsure, forward the message to the appropriate security/safety rep. for the related Email. For instance, eBay's is "[email protected]." They answer right away and let you know if it's real or not.

Here's what eBay sent me back"

Hello,

Thank you for writing to eBay regarding the email you received.

Emails such as this, commonly referred to as "spoof" or "phished"
messages, are sent in an attempt to collect sensitive personal or
financial information from the recipients.

The email you reported was not sent by eBay. We have reported this email to the appropriate authorities.

In the future, be very cautious of any email that asks you to submit
information such as your credit card number or your email password. eBay will never ask you for sensitive personal information such as passwords, bank account or credit card numbers, Personal Identification Numbers
(PINs), or Social Security Numbers in an email. If you ever need to
provide sensitive information to us, please open a new Web browser, type www.ebay.com into your browser address field, and click on the "site
map" link located at the top the page to access the eBay page you need.

If you have any doubt about whether an email message is from eBay,
please forward it immediately to [email protected]. Do not respond to it or click any of the links. Do not remove the original subject line or
change the email in any way when you forward it to us.

If you have already entered sensitive financial information or your
password into a Web site based on a request from a spoofed email, you
should take immediate action to protect your identity and all of your
online accounts. We have developed an eBay Help page with valuable
information regarding the steps you should take to protect yourself.

https://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/isgw-account-theft-reporting.html

To review eBay's new tutorial about Spoof Emails, please see the
following Web page:

https://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial/

Once again, thank you for alerting us to the spoof email you received.
Your efforts help us ensure that eBay remains a safe and vibrant online
marketplace.

Regards,

Ande
eBay SafeHarbor
Investigations Team

Be safe. Happy holiday shopping. Stay away from people that wanna sell you junk out of the trunk of their car in the parking lot. (I'm currently shopping for a new job. The rumour mill at work is once again turning.)

 

[TheRadiator]

Good info.

Just a few things I'd like to add (and repeat, sorry Eugene!) from your friendly not-so-neighborhood law enforcement personnel who would rather not see decent people get ripped off, since its 'tis the season for phishing. I've seen one from eBay, but have received another from a phony Bank One email as well.

1) Never reveal account information via e-mail as it is not a secure method of sending information.

2) Never respond to an e-mail that demands personal information, or an e-mail that asks you to "validate" or "update" credit card numbers. (Thank you Eugene)

3) Keep your anti-virus software up to date, as phishing e-mails may contain infected code.

4) Maintain a firewall, especially on a broadband connection.

5) Suspicious activity can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission.

Hope that helps everyone.

 

[Hospital_Rocket]

An now a note from an IT Manager...

1) Never, ever, provide personal information in a electronic conversation you did not initiate. There are practically no legitimate destinations that will ask you for security information.

2) Forward any of that junk mail to the company in question

eBay: [email protected]
PayPal: [email protected]

Also, apply a little common sense. Consider this: Why would a bank I've never had dealings with want me to validate my accunt information.

If you have any doubt, pick up the phone and call the institution.

Remember, with e-mail, if it smells wrong, it probably is.

A

 

[sandman]

I get them all the time too.

I report them (the ones I can like fake Ebay) The rest I don't even open. Yahoo lets me click it as Spam and it goes...away...

Along with all the people that need my "help" getting rid of millions of dollars!
The whole idea that a total stranger from Nigeria needs my financial help is...too funny for words!

OK...people use some common sense...no legitemate company would ask you for "sensitive" information". IT'S JUST NOT DONE!!!

My REAL bank needed some important information from me...they asked me to come into their office!

THAT makes sense to me.

OH, yea...one last thing.

If I get an email...any email with (none) in the subject line...I toss it! Even if the name is "sorta" familiar. If it's real they'll email me back but they will fill in a subject line if they want me to answer it.

 

[Stymye]

I also add them ,or the part after the @ sign in their address to the blocked senders list. that pretty much stopped the problem

 

[Hospital_Rocket]

Originally posted by sandman
I get them all the time too...The whole idea that a total stranger from Nigeria needs my financial help is...too funny for words!

Given that, you may enjoy this....

https://www.vatsaas.org/rtv/misc/mail7.aspx

 

[gerbs4me]

thanx for the heads up
when I get an e-mail, if I don't the person who sent it, its deleted.

 

[rbeckey]

Another biggie right now is for a "buyer" to send you a cashier's check for an item, with lots of extra money, way over and above your asking price for the item. Shortly after you get the check and deposit it, you will be asked to wire some of the surplus to a certain bank account. It will likely be an overseas bank. Sometimes there will be a desperate plea, with the news of a personal tragedy that compells you to act quickly. Other times it will be explained as a accounting error. The "buyer" will usually let you keep a generous amount of the surplus payment for your trouble. Days or even weeks later your bank will let you know that though the cashier's check appeared legit, with proper RTN and maybe even account numbers, the check was in fact counterfeit. The money that you wired back to the "buyer" will be taken from your accounts, like any other bad check. The item will never be picked up or called for delivery. The overseas bank will NOT cooperate with law enforcement to help recover funds or prosecute offenders. (Heck, they probably won't even answer inquiries!) IP traces will likely come back to spoofed or recently closed accounts, or someplace in eastern Europe or Asia that will not comply with court orders for user information.

ANY check, money order or other instrument can be counterfeited! This includes cashier's checks and US Postal Service Money Orders! Wait until your bank clears it completely until you make withdrawals on it. They can tell you how long this will take if you ask.

I have posted this before, but it is huge right now. Spread the word. The larger the item's price, the more likely you are to be targeted.

 

[jerryb]

ahh... the Nigerian requests to launder money...

those have been around forever... I worked in the oilfield in the 80's and used to get those by snailmail all the time.

they used to come in as about a 1500th generation photo copy.. at least with the emails you cant tell that they were sent to a billion people..lol

I also get an enourmous amount of the ones from paypal and ebay.

I doubt that either company does anything with the spoof emails other than have a bot autoreply to everyone but who knows... maybe they do.

later
Jerryb

Originally posted by sandman
I get them all the time too.

I report them (the ones I can like fake Ebay) The rest I don't even open. Yahoo lets me click it as Spam and it goes...away...

Along with all the people that need my "help" getting rid of millions of dollars!
The whole idea that a total stranger from Nigeria needs my financial help is...too funny for words!

 

[TheRadiator]

Ahh, the Nigerian 419 scam, that one is priceless!

You can forward 419er emails to the Secret Service, but they only archive them to datamine later. Well, as my mom used to tell me, "If it's too good to be true, then it is too good to be true!"

 

[Fore Check]

I get wacky eBay emails that are as if I have bought an itme or inquired about it. You know, the email that says "thanks for bidding and winning my auction."

Then I go to my eBay account and there is no record of it (nor my PayPal activity either.) Good thing, too.

What's up with these? I attribute them to some sort of error (like perhaps the actual buyer has a similar eBay user id or something.)

 

[kenobi65]

Originally posted by Fore Check
I get wacky eBay emails that are as if I have bought an itme or inquired about it. You know, the email that says "thanks for bidding and winning my auction."

Then I go to my eBay account and there is no record of it (nor my PayPal activity either.) Good thing, too.

What's up with these? I attribute them to some sort of error (like perhaps the actual buyer has a similar eBay user id or something.)

I've been getting similar ones, FC. They always contain a link that you can go to, to report erroneous information or some such. Those links allege to be on eBay or PayPal, but aren't, and are again just ruses to get you to enter your ID information, so the scammer can get at your account.

I doubt they're errors, unfortuantely.

I've also gotten several scam e-mails, allegedly from eBay or PayPal, saying I need to go in and confirm my account information, or else my account will be cancelled. Again, they look pretty authentic, but they aren't.

(BTW, Fore Check...cool icon. David Lo Pan, I presume? )

 

[wwattles]

My wife and I get those from "Earthlink" all the time (and yes, we are members/subscribers). I clicked their link one time and they asked for just about everything personal about me, including:
Full name
Birthdate
Address
Phone number (cell, home, work, and fax)
Bank account number (for my direct withdrawal info for my bill payment, of course)
Bank routing number
SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER (???)
And just to make sure, my mother's maiden name.

I did a WHOIS on the IP address, and discovered it was registered in Brazil. The next time it came around, it was in Honduras. Next time it was Columbia. I've reported them all to Earthlink.

Their site looked very official. All the right fonts, logos, formatting, everything. But it wasn't Earthlink.

As for spam in general, I use 2 different spam protections, Earthlink SpamBlocker, and Statalabs SpamAssassin Pro. I get about 3 spams that filter through per day, out of about 250 spams that get caught per day.

WW

 

[Rocketmaniac]

I always get a fair amount of spam. What is new and I don't understand is when I get an email that is not even addressed to me. Example, this morning I got an email addressed to [email protected]


This is NOT my email address. The only thing that is correct is the @sc.rr.com. I looked at the headers and "message source" and nowhere did I find my actual address...... How did I get it????

 

[wwattles]

You could have been on a bcc: list, or they may have constructed a group mailing list that they sent it to so on their server it would get parsed out to the recipients.

The way around it is to create a rule that says that anything with your e-mail address gets shunted to a new folder in your account, which you then use as your primary "inbox". Everything else stays there in the original inbox, which will be mass mailings and spams. You'll have to pick out the mass mailings by hand, but it helps if you sort things out a little at first.

WW

 

[Rocketmaniac]

Originally posted by wwattles
You could have been on a bcc: list, or they may have constructed a group mailing list that they sent it to so on their server it would get parsed out to the recipients.

The way around it is to create a rule that says that anything with your e-mail address gets shunted to a new folder in your account, which you then use as your primary "inbox". Everything else stays there in the original inbox, which will be mass mailings and spams. You'll have to pick out the mass mailings by hand, but it helps if you sort things out a little at first.

WW

If I was on the bcc list, wouldn't I see my email address in the message header?

I will try your idea about the "rule" and see if anything changes.

 

[BlueNinja]

I recently started getting "Your USPS delivery is ready to be picked up" emails. Is this viagra or a scam? I haven't looked at the messages.

 

[n3tjm]

Originally posted by wwattles

Their site looked very official. All the right fonts, logos, formatting, everything. But it wasn't Earthlink.

There is a reason for that... a lot of time the site IS the official one, but the page you link to is the fake one. Somebody did this with JUNO. Somehow they got their website to load, but thier fake page in the frame. I imediatly called Juno's security number, and forwarded them the message. I got a big thankyou from them.

Lately, I have been getting a lot of citibank spam. What is interesting, is there is a EMAIL SPAM alert in the contents bar... I did not spend much time there, since i am not a member of citibank,

 

[Rocketmaniac]

I just got a new kind of email..... It was not addressed to me, it had no subject and it had not message or body.


[email protected] is where it came from.


I looked at the message header and source again and found no place with my email address.

If I am on the BCC list, wouldn't there be some reference to my address in the email?