Scammers techniques on ebay

James · 05-07-2005, 03:03 PM

Hi

Just came to me to post this, as it should be useful to some. As many know ebay is full of scammers. Off the top of my head the countries they are from are Nigeria, Lithuania, Indonesia, Singapore, Bulgaria and Vietnam. These are the main ones.

Below I will 'try' to outline the differences between the countries in terms of techniques.

Nigera- Generally they use 'spoof emails'. Mainly asking users to accept payment through bidpay. They then send a fake email saying payment has been received, and the seller should despatch. Also, recently I have noticed they have been 'spoofing' Paypal emails, saying that funds will be released once gooods have been shipped. Once again, this is not from the company, but an email the Nigerian has composed to trick you. A few other things to take into account. Often in their emails they never state the products name, often the emails are in capitals (WHY!!!), And finally they always explain why they want the goods. Cousin, new shop etc.

Indonesia- Scammers from Indonesia have a few more resources available to them. They hijack paypal accounts and make payment from them to you. This payment will bounce after a day or so, leaving you out of pocket. They also state that they need the goods shipped immediately. They always email outside of ebay, and want to do "fast deal".

Bulgaira and Lithuania- See Indonesia

Singapore- Generally they work the same way as Nigerians, in not actually making a payment, but trying to trick you that it has been made. However, it has been known for them to use fake Paypal accounts.

Vietnam- Dont have too much knowledge here, but do hijack paypal accounts, and send fraudulent payments. Possibly similar to Indonesia.

I may not be 100% in this, butI think I am pretty close. Its funny that, where you from can define how you will rip people off.

The main point I am getting accross is, dont let greed get in the way! These scammers will often say they will have more than 1 unit and will pay more.

Feel free to add more if you have any tips

James

pareshvarsani · 11-07-2005, 03:06 PM

Excellent work James!!

I joined Ebay last year and started selling mobile phones. I had a V600 on sale and an Ebayer contacted me offering £400 (was worth only £200 in UK) for the phone. The Ebay ID stated the user was from US. I agreed on Monday and he made the payment to my paypal account. He stated he was a user from US but he needed the phone sent to Indonesia as it was his cousin's birthday or something and needed it sent straight away.

I made the necessary preparations and was ready to send the phone the next day but did not manage to get the time to send it. I received an email from paypal on Tuesday to advise me not to send the parcel as the payment was fraudulent. I then realised how many scammers there are around the world. I was lucky but a lot of Ebayers have been unlucky and were too late when they realised what had happened.

From that day, I started reading up on everything there was on Ebay regarding scammers and was surprised at what I found. From then on I mentioned on each listing, I would not be willing to send parcels to anywhere outside the UK and I always leave at least 2 days for payment to clear before sending parcels, however I have not heard of a UK Ebayer's ID being hijacked as of yet. These guys tend to target the new users mostly as they do not have much experience with Ebay. I have received these offers from Indonesia, Lithuania and Nigeria.

If you are new to Ebay, please ask other members about fraud on Ebay before going any further. Also the use of firewalls, ad blockers and pop up blockers will minimise the risk of hijackers getting your passwords. They use keyloggers to find out your passwords. Ebay toolbar also helps.

I hope this helps and reduces fraud on Ebay.

guru4us · 11-07-2005, 04:39 PM

I think that the most common way to getting accounts hijacked with Spoof Emails. New users are particularly targetted.

Please read this link http://pages.ebay.co.uk/safetycentre/spoof.html for more info about spoofs

**Anthony** · 11-07-2005, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guru4us

I think that the most common way to getting accounts hijacked with Spoof Emails. New users are particularly targetted.

Yeh this is a major problem. I get spoofs everyday it seems. Asking me to update my credit card on ebay and the such....

Hopefully now that ebay have introduced the new "My Messages" link within your "My Ebay" tools it will cut this sort of thing out. If I get anything I am not sure about I just send it straight onto spoof@ebay.co.uk which sorts it out.

I think once you get one spoof you are on some sort of list which you can't get off without changing to another email address!

Another thing that unfortunately we don't have any control over!

BTW: Great post james!, sure it will help a lot of people who are concerned about problems on ebay!

**MustHaveMobiles** · 12-07-2005, 11:44 AM

The latest spoof email to come 'from ebay' is regarding a transaction that you haven't paid for and you need to contact 'them' to sort it out, this one is different from the usual as it not only sends you to a cloaked redirect page that looks like ebay where you can then enter your details (as per usual) but this one also installs a data logger/key logger onto your system which obviously can give up even more important information.

Up to date security will help on this one and for anyone that uses ebay and receives anything via email the advice is to delete it, period. With the advent of my messages anything that is legitimate will be there and also any sales/payment details you need from a transaction can be obtained directly from the site.

I have the ebay email ids on my spam list now and just regularly check my accounts, sure it bins the legitimate stuff but the info is on the site and I do not run the risk of someone else in the family opening things by mistake when I am not about.

HTH,

Mike

guru4us · 12-07-2005, 03:21 PM

yes i've been getting the same kind of spoofs lately too. another clever one i've received recently was allegedly from paypal. it even had my email and full name in the greeting instead of the usual "dear valued member"

what gave them away was that they put a link in the email (paypal dont do that) and also when i placed the pointer over the link, it showed a link to a site other than paypal

**Anthony** · 12-07-2005, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guru4us

yes i've been getting the same kind of spoofs lately too. another clever one i've received recently was allegedly from paypal. it even had my email and full name in the greeting instead of the usual "dear valued member"

what gave them away was that they put a link in the email (paypal dont do that) and also when i placed the pointer over the link, it showed a link to a site other than paypal

I also get a lot of these emails! Most of the time they use my email address or valued member line but never my name. Paypal also have a spoof email which I think is spoof@paypal.com so if anybody is unsure about paypal emails just send it on to them to give the once over.

jamhun · 13-07-2005, 05:37 PM

I have had loads of emails asking me if I would like to upgrade to powerseller status (all fake) and I have also had my ID hijacked twice, but on all occassions I have managed to get everything cleared up without any cost to myself.

James

guru4us · 13-07-2005, 06:01 PM

i've received just about every possible spoof email..they're pretty easy to spot now

**Anthony** · 13-07-2005, 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamhun

I have had loads of emails asking me if I would like to upgrade to powerseller status (all fake) and I have also had my ID hijacked twice, but on all occassions I have managed to get everything cleared up without any cost to myself.

James

Yeh, I have had loads of these. I even get ones now that say "Well done you have been awarded silver powerseller status" --- I don't think so I am TITANUIM already! lol

Guru is right, most of them you can spot now!