<VV> EBay heads up (no Corvair but very useful if you buy or sell Corvair stuff on eBay!)

Ken Wildman k-wildman@onu.edu
Sun, 16 Jan 2005 10:26:48 -0500


At 09:32 AM 1/16/2005, Alan and Clare Wesson wrote:
>Just a little note to say that I have had no fewer than four of a 
>disturbing new kind of eBay spoof today. At first I was semi-convinced 
>they were real, but I just thought I would check anyway (with 
>spoof@ebay.co), and they are definitely fake.
>
>Three were invitations to me to become an eBay power seller, but the 
>clickable button showed an address that wasn't eBay. The fourth was 
>cheeky! About a month ago my eBay ID was hijacked for about an hour, and 
>someone started selling a stolen motorbike on it. Both I and eBay 
>discovered within the hour and cancelled the sale, but it was scary (I 
>guess someone had somehow got one of my passwords and hacked into the 
>account). Anyway, I changed all the settings and it has been O.K. since.
>
>Today I got an email purporting to be from eBay, saying that as my account 
>had recently been the subject of fraud they wanted me to verify all my 
>account details. You've guessed it - that was fraud too! That one is 
>cheeky, because it was believable, and I assume it came from the 
>perpetrator of the original fraud (it could have just been random, but I 
>have never had one like it before).
>
>Anyway, just a warning to forward ALL emails like that to eBay for 
>checking. And if you need to change any of the personal details in 'My 
>eBay', go to www.ebay.com and log in to do it from there, rather than 
>clicking on links in emails.
>
>Cheers
>
>Alan

No legitimate e-mail will ask for personal information unless you have 
specifically requested something from the site.  Any unsolicited request 
for information is a case of "phishing" which seeks to gain that 
information for illegal use.

Be safe,
Ken