Ebay and paypal spoof mails. Please read

sir_monster

Hi

I got a fake e-mail today saying that $475 dollars would be taken out of my account and then has a link to a 'dispute' centre which is obviously the front to get your details.

E-mailed PayPal the e-mail and said it was a spoof but is so easy to get caught out as you are panicking that quite a bit of money may go, only to realise later if you did a lot more would disappear!! :eek:

oldagetraveller

Dear xxxxx xxxxx,

You are signed up for PayPal's daily updating service for auction listings with PayPal logos for eBay.

During our last update, your eBay User ID, xxxxxx, and password were declined as invalid by eBay. Therefore, your listings were not updated with PayPal logos.

If you have changed the password for your eBay user ID, please update your auction information:

1. Log in to your PayPal account
2. Go to the 'Profile' subtab
3. Click on the 'Auctions' link in the 'Selling Preferences' column
4. Select the User ID for which you would like to change the password
5. Enter your new password in the box provided
6. Click 'Update'.

If you have changed your User ID, please add it to your account:

1. Log in to your PayPal account
2. Go to the 'Auction Tools' tab
3. Click on the 'Automatic Logos' link
4. Enter your new eBay User ID and password
5. Click 'Submit'
6. Tick the box to select Automatic Daily Updating, and select the logo you would like posted on your auctions
7. Click 'Submit'

If your eBay User ID is no longer valid, you may remove it from your PayPal account:

1. Log in to your PayPal account
2. Go to the 'Profile' subtab
3. Click on the 'Auctions' link in the 'Selling Preferences' column
4. Select the User ID you would like to remove
5. Click 'Remove'
6. Click 'Remove'

If you have any questions, please contact us by using this link:

https://www.paypal.com/uk/ewf/f=st_auction

Yours sincerely,
The PayPal Auction Team

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and click the Help link located in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

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PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD

NEVER give your password to anyone, including PayPal employees. Protect yourself against fraudulent websites by opening a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing in the PayPal URL every time you log in to your account.

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PayPal Email ID PP012

Don't know if anyone has received similar to the above or if it's been posted before. This is the 2nd I've received and Paypal confirmed the first as a fake. They're very convincing and the fact that my correct name is on the first line makes it even more genuine looking. How the heck has someone got that? I've recently changed my eBay password, as I do regularly, as mentioned in the message - talk about big brother watching!

duncansby

Hi. I received about 20 emails today confirming items I had listed for ebay. (They were titleist golf clubs) I had not listed them so went on to ebay live chat and they very helpfully and quickly confirmed that someone had accessed my account and had listed the items. They removed them and said I would not be charged. When I asked how someone had got access to my account they said that I must have responded to a spoof email. However I am 100% certain I have never responded to an email from ebay (spoof or otherwise), but they didn't really believe me so how else could they have accessed my account. I am now thinking of closing my ebay account and it was quite scary. If I hadn't noticed the listings goodness knows what would have happened

soolin

duncansby wrote:

Hi. I received about 20 emails today confirming items I had listed for ebay. (They were titleist golf clubs) I had not listed them so went on to ebay live chat and they very helpfully and quickly confirmed that someone had accessed my account and had listed the items. They removed them and said I would not be charged. When I asked how someone had got access to my account they said that I must have responded to a spoof email. However I am 100% certain I have never responded to an email from ebay (spoof or otherwise), but they didn't really believe me so how else could they have accessed my account. I am now thinking of closing my ebay account and it was quite scary. If I hadn't noticed the listings goodness knows what would have happened

Ebay are right in that the most common way of getting your account hijacked is to respond in any way to a spoof mail, many people don't even realise they have done it as the mail looks good andthey have no reason to doubt they've updated their info legitimately or something.

If you are 100% sure you didn't do that then there are other possibilities, either you've left yourself logged in on a shared computer somewhere, you'd be surprised how many people just close the screen and don't completely log out of ebay properly. Alternatively you may have an easily guessable password, a colleague of mine was hacked by someone that wanted to cause her mischief. She used a similar set of passwords for all her online transactions and her hacker just tried every combination he could think of until he gained access.

One other thing, and something you might want to ask on the techie board about, is a spyware or virus on your pC which leaves you open to attack.

Unlike most of our rmajor banks who have admitted to being hacked, there doesn't seem to be any suggestions, not even on the militant unmoderated ebay boards that anyone has ever hacked them. Therefore the security problem has to be something on your PC, hence my suggestion that you change all your passwords on everything you use online and maybe do a complete clean to detect anything nasty.

Soo

victory

I have had loads of spoof emails, 3 today, I always send them straight off to spoof@ebay.com and they answer straight away saying to delete them, never use the link inside the email to log onto the account, that is one way they get your info.

neelpeel

I had a spoof Paypal email yesterday stating something about donating a 'Penny for Pudsey' (Children in Need) to win a Porsche Boxster.

I nnnnneeeeearly went for it, then at the last minute thought...hmm, better double check first. I did a Google for 'Paypal Pudsey Penny' and a few other searches and nothing came up. I looked on the Paypal website and there was nothing about the competition.
I then emailed Paypal to double check and in fairness to them I received an almost immediate reply stating that this was not genuine.

I was very surprised. The email is the best I have seen by far and even after doing a Google I was nearly caught hook line and sinker.

Actually, I may still have been caught out and would like some advice.
I initially clicked a link for more info, at which point it asked you to text '1p for Pudsey' or something like that to a given number (apparently to donate a penny and prime your phone for mobile Paypal). This was the point that I Googled for info.
By clicking the link may I have launched a phishing program or something??

Hope this helps someone.

neelpeel

Actually, I've just Googled again for this scam and there seems to be no mention of it anywhere.

smellybum

I posted a query to paypal 11 days ago. I recieved what appeared to be a fake warning about unauthorised use of my account. The email asked me to click on the link and enter my sign-in details. Now I am not that stupid, however after sending the email to paypal I recieved nothing back from them. I then sent it again and also a follow up email just to ask for confirmation and still no reply from them. I have checked my cards and there is no activity on them that was not from me.
I just find the lack of response and reasurrence from paypal abysmal

kirkie_2

There must be a few going around as the one I sent to them was genuine according to PayPal.....

vickitoria6232

I have been a victim of scam emails supposedly sent by ebay.
I was about to buy a car for £7k when I double checked the email.

Ebay now include at top of some messages:
"eBay sent this message to YOUR REGISTERED NAME (eBAY ID). Your registered name is included to help confirm this message originated from eBAy. Learn more."
Please check that this does occur, that it contains both your registered name & ID, and that the link actually works!

Also, check all spellings including correct use of capital/lower case letters
(my ID is all lower case but the email used a capital first letter)

Another helpful tip: if your email viewer has a button labelled "details", this will give tell you where the e-mail originated from. It is very complicated but it should contain some reference to ebay.com in it somewhere. If it doesn't, BEWARE!
(This applies to all e-mails, not just eBay - egg.com told me this info & very helpful it is too.)

Finally, send all dodgy looking emails to spoof@ebay.co.uk - they are usually quite quick to reply. :money: