Yet another ebay scam - beware!!!

[Retromania]

I must be jinxed!  I really must.  

Some of you may remember I placed an advert on Amibench a few months ago for my Amiga kit and ended up picking up a Scammer on the way (remember the Turtle Beak Chips? ;-) he he).  Well, I decided to list my A4000 on ebay the week before last and it finally sold for a pretty decent price.  I was all set to meet the buyer this weekend as he was collecting the kit personally.  Then, a couple of nights ago I checked my email as usual and I had one from ebay advising me that my change of email address request had been successful.  I checked my ebay and amazingly my password still worked.  But my email address had been changed.  Weird huh?  So, I began to look for unauthorised activity, fearing the worst, like I was the winning bidder on something expensive.  What I found was worse - the Scammer had sent a "Second Chance Offer" to one of the unsuccessful bidders on my A4000 and the note even said to reply to this new email address.  Obviously the idea here being that the Scammer would get the money sent to themselves by the unsuspecting Second Chance Offer winner and then they get no A4000, so then start coming after me as it was all done through my ebay User ID.  I cancelled the Second Chance Offer listing immediately, changed my passwords and reported it all to ebay.  They then placed other checks on my account that would identify unauthorised access and activity.  So, no damage.  Wrong!!!  Good old ebay then removed the Second Chance Offer listing completely (I had just cancelled it) and then they went and removed the real listing too - the one that had actually ended with a real winning bid.  The next thing is that I get an email from the buyer asking me to explain why he had received an email from ebay advising him not to proceed on the purchase of the Amiga and that the seller (me) did not have the account holder's (me) permission to list the item.  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!

So, now there is no listing to salvage and if I list the Amiga again my credibility on ebay is compromised.

I think I shall take it as a sign that I am supposed to keep my Amigas!!!

So, how did this all come about?  Well, after the auction had ended I received a question from another ebay member asking if I was the real seller of the Amiga as they had seen an identical one, with identical description, on ebay with a different item number.  They included the link to the ebay listing in with the email.  But this was from an ebay member so it all looked normal.  I clicked on the link to see if someone had used my photos or something and the listing was for something completely unrelated - a pair of hi-fi speakers.  So I thought nothing more about it, but it niggled me as it was "a bit odd".  Looking back, this must be how the Scammer got my login details - the link I followed must have captured my info somehow.

So, if any of you are selling on an auction site and you get an odd email with a link in it - Please do not follow it - you may end up having your account hijacked for fraudulent use.

It makes me sick, it really does.  I know it could have been a lot worse, but it is not a pleasant experience.

See - told you - I must be jinxed!!! :-(

Retromania

[terminator4]

my advice,
follow simple rule: do not click on links in your ebay emails.  Each URL has ebay item # anyway, so you can pull it up manually in ebay via advanced search.  also you can reply or ignore the email.  (just don't click on any URLs thats how scammer, hardly call them hackers, as its very low level, get access).   :-D

[Lockon_15]

Well, you got me entering DEFCON 2, no doubt at all...

Thnx for posting.

[Piru]

Well, after the auction had ended I received a question from another ebay member asking if I was the real seller of the Amiga as they had seen an identical one, with identical description, on ebay with a different item number. They included the link to the ebay listing in with the email. But this was from an ebay member so it all looked normal. I clicked on the link to see if someone had used my photos or something and the listing was for something completely unrelated - a pair of hi-fi speakers. So I thought nothing more about it, but it niggled me as it was "a bit odd". Looking back, this must be how the Scammer got my login details - the link I followed must have captured my info somehow.

Not somehow, but with a spoof website that recorded your login and password. The spoof website link was disguised to look like valid ebay link.

This is the "industry standard" scam, and it works alarmingly well.

See Ebay: Spoof Email Tutorial

Simple rule: If someone wants you to log into ebay, paypal, bank, whatever, always type the real website URL to the browser address-bar yourself. Do not follow any links in emails.

[CLS2086]

Why did you follow the link ?
Ebay always put your real name, not only your Seller ID.
I receive at least 10 of these mails per day, but not on my Ebay dedicated mails.  :lol:

[kd7ota]

I always check out for any kind of external links or anything like that.  I never click on an ebay link through an email, and if I do so, then I highlight the link and copy the text, not the hyperlink itself as long as it has www.ebay.com/ on it.  Hmmmm, but normally I just change passwords often to prevent any kind of fraud.

[Retromania]

@ CLS2086

Why did I follow the link?  Well, I was caught off my guard and this is the first time it has happened on ebay.  Lesson learned now though!

Retromania

[Ami_GFX]

 Our poor beloved Amiga, cursed by being so desirable and worth so much money. So many scammers on her tail.

I really appreciate this post as an Amigan and an Ebayer. over the past few months I have bid on a number of A3000s and lost on all of them and the majority of these bids--like 4 out of 5--generated phoney second chance offers. All of them pretty pathetic: Most had the same text and all had Ebay.co.uk on the header instead of Ebay.com--I'm in the US. The only really good one I got--one that could have fooled someone--was for an Atari Mega St that I had bid on the night before. There was just one problem: I had won that auction and had bid on it in a spirit of half drunken fun and was so shocked that I actually won the the auction that I immediatly emailed the seller my phone number and we worked out the details of payment and shipping over the phone. It was funny also because it wasn't for very much money--the auction price was just $100us. It was such a good fake that I reported it to Ebay and they responded within a half an hour telling me that the second chance offer on the auction I had won was indeed a fake. After reading your post, it looks like we should be wary of even genuine second chance offers.

I think I shall take it as a sign that I am supposed to keep my Amigas!!!
Retromania

I have considerd selling my first Amiga--an A2500--several times and fate has always interveaned. The last time was a few monthes ago. I had bought an A2000 Video toaster and had just won another one in absolutely pristine condition and the plan was to swap a few parts and sell the A2500 when I was done. When my new A2000 Toaster arrived, it had been severely damaged in shipping and was only good for parts and the motherboard and memory card went into my ailing A2500 and I started playing around with it and looking at all the great art I had done on it's hard drive and I had a complete change of heart and decided to keep my restored and upgraded A2500 and just sold the 1084s monitor that always drove me crazy and used the money to buy an A2320 Amber card so now it's almost as good as having one of the A3000s that I can't seem to win.

[huronking]

It has to be a great business these days scamming eBayers.
I saw the other day someone asking to ship an ordinary
raggedy 20-year-old boat (<$1,000) to Russia from Minnesota.

[K7HTH]

Caveat venditor.