Re: [Thinkpad] Possible hijacked Ebay account

The trick with these types of hijacks are to give the guise of offering
multiple payment options
to present the air of security. They also take the time to steal somebody
else's HTML or
have the skill to create a decent looking ad themselves.

With the low feedback of the original owner, he probably fell victim to the
millions of
phishing requests sent via email. My wife, who has a feedback of over 500,
fell victim
to a similar situation not once but twice on eBay. A lot of it is end user
naivety. First
time, she was phished. But when she got her account restored, she restored
it with
the SAME password (ok, that was kind of stupid <g>). Both times, they ran a
lot of
high end items. I had to sit her down and spend 30min explaining basic security
across the board and now if anything looks odd, she asks.

The object is to get as many winning bids as possible, and offer a discount
for paying with
lesser and lesser secure means of payment (ie, send me a money order, and
I'll give you
20% off!). You will notice they didn't offer PayPal as an option, and I can
almost 100%
guarantee there is no Visa/MC/Amex/Escrow option at all at the end. The
idea is to get those
few who are happy with what is already a killer deal and want to save even more
and get the "ultra" killer deal which is only available via Western Union,
Postal MO,
or if they are smart, even wire transfers.

I especially like the, "High bidder: User ID kept private," LOL. In some
instances, it is
valid, but here it is clear it is to prevent others from warning the bidder
of the potential
scam.

Whenever I purchase something rather expensive from eBay, I always:

A> Check their feedback and the types of sales they've done in the past. If
they
have primarily been a buyer and suddenly list a lot of high end items, that
is a red flag.

B> Get their real contact info and CALL THEM.

C> Make sure to use a more secure method of payment (PayPal, V/MC/Amex,
Escrow).

D> In one case, I contacted the last winning bidder of an auction to see
how it went along with
the contact info they conducted the transaction with.

E> Lastly, trust your instincts. If something doesn't feel right, don't let
the specter of
a killer deal override common sense.

At 05:29 PM 9/6/2004, Bruce Markowitz wrote:
>Anyone see anything odd? Hint- look at his other Ebay auctions, and his
>"recent" feedback
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=31554&item=6706183381&rd=1

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Received on Mon Sep 6 18:02:48 2004