Is This the ebay Scam I've been Reading About?

hench1

I got this email today:

***Urgent Safeharbor Department Notice***

eBay Fraud Mediation Request
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004

You have recieved this email because you or someone had used your account to make fake bids at eBay. For security purposes, we are required to open an investigation into this matter.

THE FRAUD ALERT ID CODE CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE WILL BE ATTACHED IN OUR FRAUD MEDIATION REQUEST FORM, IN ORDER TO VERIFY YOUR EBAY ACCOUNT REGISTRATION INFORMATIONS.

Fraud Alert ID CODE: xxxxxxxxx
(Please save this Fraud Alert ID Code for your reference.)

To help speed up this process, please access the following form to complete the verification of your eBay account registration informations:

http://211.202.3.208/event_1201/popup.files/.eBay/eBayISAPI.php?MfcISAPICommand=SignInFPP&UsingSSL=1&email=&userid=

.

Please Note:
If we do not receive the appropriate eBay account verification within 48 hours, then we will assume this eBay account is fraudulent and will be suspended.
The purpose of this verification is to ensure that your eBay account has not been fraudulently used and to combat the fraud from our community.


We appreciate your support and understanding, as we work together to keep eBay a safe place to trade.

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

Regards, Safeharbor Department (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay Inc.




IS THIS ONE OF THE SCAMS THE CROOKS HAVE BEEN RUNNING ON EBAY LATELY???

jrdolan

One of several scams being used to steal eBay ID's and passwords. They are looking more and more legit, with forged eBay return addresses and all. Just remember eBay's promise: they will never ask for such info by email!

Ironically, these scams claim to need your personal information because bad people are stealing personal information.

hench1

WOW, I almost fell for this one, but fortunately it rang a bell.... One of the MANY bennies of reading these boards. Thanks to all who bothered to post this in the beginning....

schr1st

Any time you get an email that you question, send it to spoof@eBay.com before doing anything. Make sure you include the internet headers. They are pretty good about responding quickly to inquiries and concerns (usually less than 12 hours).

CON40

That's right! Don't send it though, forward it... this will include all the header info so ebay can track it more accurately.

I have gotten a few of them in the past couple weeks and I forwarded all to spoof@eBay.com and all were fake emails they confirmed.

Most important, don't reply to any of them!

Aknot

Or you can reply in your spare time. What I like to do when I have a little time to kill, is "cut and paste" "false" information. I figure they have the time to send it out they can check all the ones that come back....

jrdolan

The one I received was really brash. It didn't even have a link to go to a spoof web site. The email itself looked exactly like an ebay sign-on page, with boxes to enter your ID and password. The (forged) return address was even aw-confirm@ebay.com. I forwarded it with headers to spoof@ebay.com and they confirmed it was a scam.

I bet more than a few ebayers fell for it, and more than a few of those had their accounts briefly hijacked to run scam auctions such as we have seen in the past week or so.

cspeier1

Also, if you get a Paypal email that you are suspect of you can forward it to spoof@paypal.com. I'm so glad Ebay has this, it sure keeps your piece of mind..

Chad

JeffSherman

You can often tell a fake eBay email by spelling and grammar mistakes .. such as "recieved" in this one, I think..... I got one that talked about "temporally" suspending my account (what? go back to 2001 and do it then? 1897? 43 B.C.?)... they are getting better, but its sometimes easy to spot the phonies....

helionaut

Whenever you get an email like this, make sure you check the address the link goes to by resting your mouse pointer over it and checking the address that comes up. If you use Outlook, it appears in the lower left corner of your screen. It's possible to make a link that appears in your email read something like "www.ebay.com" but the actual address is something completely different. In this case, the link goes to http://211.202.3.208... A dead giveaway. Ebay doesn't use "naked" IP addresses, and they always have ebay.com as the domain name.

Also, typos and bad grammar are common in these scams. "You have recieved this email because you or someone had used your account to make fake bids at eBay." There are several problems in that first sentence alone.

If you ever do have a real safeharbor or other ebay issue, be safe and type the correct address directly into your browser.