Cantus Rock
08-14-2002, 12:21 AM
Just a little reminder to all people who do business on eBay to be aware of the scam artists that try to get your personal information through disguised emails.
I bring this point up, being that my mother was nearly taken in by a scam, and could have been a victim of identity fraud. To those who don't know, this is how it works (at lease this is how it worked in the situation with my mother):
An email will come that looks very, very much like an official email from eBay. The email address matches up, and the letters wording is very similar. The letter says something like this:
Your Account has been marked (flagged) as being inaccurate or fraudulent. To renew your account information, click the supplied link
Lucky for my mom the link supplied wasn't working. The link was something obviously unrelated to eBay, being it was a series of letters, numbers, and % signs. (I know % are used where there is a space in a URL, but eBay very rarely has that, and even if they do its usualy 1 in the middle of a typical eBay URL). Then there will be an (800) number listed. Again, luckily for my mother that wasn't working (I think the scammers might have been caught and shut down before my mom got the email).
She called eBay's real number and talked to customer support. The nice lady said that the email did not come from eBay. She walked me through the steps of sending it to SafeHarbor (eBay's security branch), and said they'd investigate it.
Now, they picked the wrong person to scam in my mother because A) Her account info is flawless, and B) While she isn't fully computer literate, I am. But this is a warning for anyone else who might be at risk. Be careful. I wouldn't want any of you nice people to become victims of Identity Fraud. :)
-Matt
I bring this point up, being that my mother was nearly taken in by a scam, and could have been a victim of identity fraud. To those who don't know, this is how it works (at lease this is how it worked in the situation with my mother):
An email will come that looks very, very much like an official email from eBay. The email address matches up, and the letters wording is very similar. The letter says something like this:
Your Account has been marked (flagged) as being inaccurate or fraudulent. To renew your account information, click the supplied link
Lucky for my mom the link supplied wasn't working. The link was something obviously unrelated to eBay, being it was a series of letters, numbers, and % signs. (I know % are used where there is a space in a URL, but eBay very rarely has that, and even if they do its usualy 1 in the middle of a typical eBay URL). Then there will be an (800) number listed. Again, luckily for my mother that wasn't working (I think the scammers might have been caught and shut down before my mom got the email).
She called eBay's real number and talked to customer support. The nice lady said that the email did not come from eBay. She walked me through the steps of sending it to SafeHarbor (eBay's security branch), and said they'd investigate it.
Now, they picked the wrong person to scam in my mother because A) Her account info is flawless, and B) While she isn't fully computer literate, I am. But this is a warning for anyone else who might be at risk. Be careful. I wouldn't want any of you nice people to become victims of Identity Fraud. :)
-Matt