E-Bay scam

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The Restorer

Established Member
Joined
11 Nov 2004
Messages
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Location
Oxfordshire
Hi folks,

Just wanted to warn all you E-bayers of a scam that i got caught up in.

I received a phone call out of the blue from a chap who had purchased an Aiybo electronic dog (£800 :shock: ) and wanted to check details re postage. I told him i didn't know what he was on about and so he told me the story and gave me an E-bay number (6011561496). I checked this out and sure enough there was my E-bay details with my feedback etc. etc. but an address in Berlin, Germany.

I checked the my E-bay summary page and found no trace of the item within it, but did find that all of the sellers fees were on my account :roll:
If you try to contact E-bay you can only do so via there e-mail system. So far i've sent 5 e-mails in around 72hrs and only had one auto reply back :shock:

If that wasn't enough i noticed something odd with my personal e-mail (no spam mails :lol: )I check with my ISP and they advised that i'd set my E-mail to auto forward any incoming mail :roll: to a hotmail account. Soon altered that and associated passwords. Worried though about internet banking etc. etc.

Now i have a full and up to date internet security package from Norton with Firewalls etc. and assumed i was fine :(
I've informed local police, (no interest, no crime committed, heres a crime number sir :x ), E-bay (no response), Hotmail (will look into it), ISP (must be you're end problem :shock: ) Norton (want £18 to speak to them about it :lol: ).

The guy who was the winning bidder has been great about it and sent me various e-mails from the 3rd party, some of which have e-bay logos and hyper links to e-bay, so look very genuine.
I expect i'll loose my E-bay good name and feedback as a reult of this.

So just wanted to point out that E-bays a nest of vipers and it's way to easy to fall into one of these scams. The thing that alerted the potential buyer to the scam is that they wanted money via western union credit after supplying an e-mail from e-bay saying that the seller was bonded with them as a genuine and bonafide seller and funds were guaranteed etc.

Watch out :shock:

Steve.
 
Hmm, that sounds quite serious - like they managed to get your passwords somehow. You mention Norton - is that a firewall only or have you the virus checker? Did you have any obvious passwords? Is your virus checker up-to-date? I have mine set to update daily and scan after 5 minutes of inactivity. Have you got the latest Windows Service packs?

I hope that you get it sorted, ASAP.

Adam
 
Sounds serious, glad you caught it in time. Out of interest though, how did he get your phone number? did you supply it on your genuine e-bay listing and someone copied it? If not then two options immediately spring to mind - someone who knows you is setting you up for a fall, or someone you purchased from / sold to in the past is setting you up for a fall. Might help the police if they eventually decide a crime has been committed.

On the plus side it doesnt seem to be someone trying to scam you, just using your publicly available details to set up a dummy account to fool other bidders into sending money. I guess the moral is put up as little detail as necessary when selling on e-bay. Oh, and never use Western Union as a payment method!

Cheers,

Steve.
 
StevieB":3h7imfe0 said:
Out of interest though, how did he get your phone number? did you supply it on your genuine e-bay listing and someone copied it?
Steve.

You can apply to ebay for the telephone number of the person you are puchasing from. Ebay then email you both with the requested details, so you can see whos asked for your contact details, as well as the person who asking for them getting them. I've had to ask ebay for someones telephone number before, to make a last minute change to a local pickup.

Adam
 
Ah, thanks for that Adam, didnt know that. Time to check my profile and see if I a) left a phone number (I usually put 00 000 0000 if it demands I fill in the box) and b) if I did whether I can remove it!

Steve.
 
StevieB":3fd5l3ok said:
Ah, thanks for that Adam, didnt know that. Time to check my profile and see if I a) left a phone number (I usually put 00 000 0000 if it demands I fill in the box) and b) if I did whether I can remove it!

Steve.

As this shows though, its in your interest to have your number there. Its not available for general viewing, and helps in these situations. Provided you are not doing anything funny, I reckon you should leave the number on there.

Adam
 
The Norton set up i have is Norton Internet Security 2004, updated to 2005. Thats firewall, antivirus etc.etc. And yes it's updated automatically and regularly as is the Windows XP via microsoft.
It looks as though they used the available info on E-bay and copied it across and changed the address details (although this didn't show up on my E-bay). They must have guessed the password, 6 letters and a numerical. They then accessed my ISP e-mail account and used the password (different, 6 letters and two numericals) to re-route my personal incoming e-mail. And no i haven't given out my passwords.

I've now installed a spyware program, but it hasn't found anything.

Worrying thing is how easy this was done and how easily someone could have been scammed into paying for non existant goods as it all looks so genuine. Guy even sent an e-mail confirming he was working in germany at present, but was uk based normally :shock:

Still nothing from E-bay. Hope he hasn't bought too many Ferraris for me :shock: Don't want any bills for that.
 
Surely he's unlikely to have guessed both passwords which include numericals? Once sounds quite unlikely, twice sounds like someones running a keylogger on you.

Used any internet cafes recently which could have had a key stroke logger installed?

Adam
 
Never used internet other than through my own, home PC.
Key logger / spyware was 1st thought (thats why installed software from Microsoft that's supposed to find/stop it) no sign of anything.

Firewall is also supposed to counteract this sort of thing.

Got me beat as to how it's happened.
 
Maybe someone with a bit more savvy about PCs will have a better idea.

Thats about my limit of knowledge to be honest!

Adam
 
The Restorer":2nv83ynw said:
Never used internet other than through my own, home PC.
Key logger / spyware was 1st thought (thats why installed software from Microsoft that's supposed to find/stop it) no sign of anything.

Firewall is also supposed to counteract this sort of thing.

Got me beat as to how it's happened.

Did you respond at any time to an E bay email??
There were a lot of spam emails aking you to confirm your details.
 
Barry Burgess":1i3kiibk said:
Did you respond at any time to an E bay email??
There were a lot of spam emails aking you to confirm your details.

Ahh yes, the "we're doing a security update" and can you confirm your email address etc..... Only its not ebay whos asking. They do look awfully official though.

Adam
 
I did have one of those security check :roll: emails a while back when i logged into E-bay, 1st filled it in with obscenities, then decided not to send it and just deleted it. Surely that wouldn't give them a keyway?

It wouldn't be so bad if i could identify how this happened. According to ISP there is software out there that will generate password checks at the rate of thousands per minute and if no "three strikes and you're out" exist then it'll crack your passwords in seconds.

The recommendation is to change passwords on a regular basis and use at least 6 digits and min. 2 numericals. Install firewall, antivirus and spyware and make sure you set it to update itself regularly.

I don't think that the 3rd party (what do you call them! :wink: ) has got some sort of keystroke mapping device hooked to my PC, as the firewall should have stopped it and the new spyware software should have found it. But you just don't know. I couldn't beleive that Norton wanted £18 just to speak to them - don't think i'll be renewing that next year.

Any help/advice much appreciated.

Thanks.
 
The Restorer":r60bo0sc said:
I did have one of those security check :roll: emails a while back when i logged into E-bay, 1st filled it in with obscenities, then decided not to send it and just deleted it. Surely that wouldn't give them a keyway?

They would have got it if you partly replied.
 
i dont know zilch about putters.
but do you use wirless i have heard that your neghbour can see what you are doing on your computer dont know if its true or not .

frank
 
nope, wireless not used (well only for radio 2 :lol: ).
No bog standard PC.

Surely if i just deleted alleged security check then they wouldn't have been able to link with it, would they??

Have now run security checks on my software set ups and PC is invisible to the net.
Have installed 5 spyware programs, all have found different things, but no vindictive key stroke type programes.

It's a mystery to me, way to complicated. French Polishing secrecys are nothing compared to all this IT stuff :roll:
 
I think there was another e-bay scam type thread not so long back. I can't see why anyone would risk using them for anything, notwithstanding all the computer problems how do you know your getting what you think you're getting?? If you buy something that turns out to be c**p what can you do - Nothing.
 
I've done over 200 transactions on Ebay, most as a buyer, and I've only been let down twice. The first time a few chivvying emails got me my money back, the second time it took a complaint to Paypal/Ebay. Overall, at least 99% of people are honest and the feedback mechanism is a very effective deterrent. Both times I had trouble it was on consumer electronics (a mobile and a PC accessory), which I don't bother with anymore.
 
Same here - bought loads of stuff (wood,tools,CD's,games..lots of stuff..)
Only two bad experiences - one I had to wait nearly a month for the goods,and the other never responded to e-mails - so I never got the goods,but hadn't paid anything either :?

For a lot of things now,I look on e-bay to see if I can find it and buy off there,rather than go into town for it.

Andrew
 
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