Wolfgang

I think ebay sees themselves as just providing 'transaction technology' rather than mediating sales. I do not really have any problem with that as long as they make it clear - their blind eye approach has made tracking down films much easier. Personally I will not buy anything unless it is through paypal.

My biggest bugbear with ebay is how someone puts up wrong barcodes which are often important for dvds and cds in differentiating between different versions. I always contact them now to clarify it and you do feel patronising when they email you straight back and say "yeah I copied it in". But it is even more ubelievable when they email you back and say "no, does it matter?" and do not even bother editing their sale page!

Ascoyne D'Ascoyne

Today I received an email from ebay-Optima (whatever that is) asking me to verify my current information.

I followed the link, put in my ebay screen-name and password and was refused access. Thinking I had made a typo I tried again and got through to the required page. Halfway through I was asked for my national insurance number. "They're not having that" I thought and went back to the message in my email inbox only to discover that the message, although delivered to the correct server, tiscali.co.uk had a completely different name from mine at the beginning of the address.

I find this all a bit worrying, firstly because e-mail which is not mine is getting through to me and secondly that I was able to enter ebay on a second attempt even though my screen name and password didn't relate to the email address.

Over the last week I have also had several emails from Barclays Bank in Southend asking me to verify my details in order to continue on-line banking. Since I have not held any sort of account with Barclays for nearly 40 years I emailed them back (three times!) asking them to let me know how they got hold of my email address and what is going on. The rest is silence.

DB7

My brother-in-law fell for a similar sting. He received an email from ebay asking him to confirm his username and password for a security check - he filled in the boxes on the html mail and unknowingly sent his details to a scammer. The scammer then took over his ebay account, changed the password to lock my brother out and put a 40k American camper van up for sale. And just for good measure they tried the same combination on Paypal - it worked, he used the same password for nearly everything. Took a few days to clear up.

Ascoyne D'Ascoyne

Hi DB7
I've recently changed my ebay username (not my password) and thought it was something to do with that.
There was a link to the information which I followed which looked genuine enough; do you think they've obtained my password even though I didn't complete and send the information?
What I can't understand (I've checked it 3 times!) is how an email beginning jes.....@tiscali can get through to my inbox jffr.....@tiscali.

DB7

Hard to say, you are probably ok and it wouldn't submit the information until you hit send/ok with all the boxes filled. Don't respond directly to any emails you receive asking for personal details, it's so easy to fake the address, also use your browser bookmarks rather than those sent in an email as they can be faked too. If concerned change your ebay password.

I'm not sure what email client you use, but if you find an option to view source or header, you should see the identity of the real sender near the top. It'll likely be a set of numbers like 213.564.456 rather than a .com/co.uk etc.

Ascoyne D'Ascoyne

Thanks for that. In fact I've just gone and changed my ebay and paypal details just in case. I'll have to try to remember them myself!
The sender of the email was listed as "ebay-Optima"<checkout@ebay.com>
I wonder if other members might be able to comment on the genuineness of this.
A further mystery( I printed the email off just to have something concrete in my hands and before my eyes) -a note at the bottom reads "this eBay notice was sent to brian-s-****** (my edit) at yahoo.com How on earth did it reach my tiscali email box? (I have no connection with any brian-s-*****)

DB7

Rather than sender look for Return-Path: xxxxxx@xxxxx.com

If you join Spamcop.net they will break down the email and tell you its origins, and offer you the opportunitty to send abuse complaints.

I tend to get the odd fake ebay mail but roughly 2 fake TSB mails per week to my freemail account. It's often a good idea to use your isp email for Paypal etc but use a Yahoo/Hotmail account for joining forums etc. A lot of free services make their money by passing on email addresses to third parties... who will then spam you.

Steve Crook

It's a Phising expedition. Not many people fall for it and fill in the details, but they send out billions of those messages and only need a small percentage to fill in the forms and they can coin it in.

Never, Never fill in a form in an email like that.
If it offers you a link to a web page, you'll probably see a page that looks like a page from the people that you think sent you the message - but check that address and you'll see that it's from somewhere totally unrelated to eBay.

Places like eBay and all the banks, have policy statements that they'll never ask for user details in an email and they also tell you how to recognise these attempts to get your passwords and other details.

You should never even reply to emails like this. All that happens when you reply is that you've confirmed your email exists so you'll get a lot more of them.

Always be a bit suspicious. Not totally suspicious of everything or you'll never have any fun. But remember that "there are crocodiles" out there.

Steve

They probably had a whole load of email addresses on the same distribution list - but only the first one was shown.

That means they probably sent it out via Outlook which doesn't let you send to BCC addresses only, it insists on at least one visible address.

It's easy to make a web page that looks like an eBay (or a bank's) admin page.
Check the address (URL) and you'll see that it starts with something totally different, unrelated to ebay or the bank.

Steve

mysteriesofedgarwallace

I tend to use a number of different email addresses for different things.
The email address I use for fleabay I use for nothing else.
I now use gmail for everything and have found it very good, a much better bet than an isp email address (in my case nthell) used with outlook, etc.

Steve Crook

That can help a bit, but not much and then only if you manage them correctly.
But every time you make a purchase or sale on eBay you give your email address to the other party in the sale. And who's to know what they do with it. They could deliberately sell on all the email addresses they know or they could just list them on an accessible web page which the phishers then trawl through.

Then, once they have your email address, you'll start getting the fraudulent emails.
It's very hard to stop them being sent.
It's better to be aware of them and know what to do when they do arrive.

Steve

AMP

I had a scam email purporting to come from eBay a couple of weeks ago along the lines of someone is using your account to make fraudulent bids etc we need you to confirm user name and password via the link. The best bet is to go on your ‘My eBay’ page as any actual emails sent from eBay are copied to this page – if there isn’t a copy email on your eBay page they didn’t send it – simple!

Ascoyne D'Ascoyne

Thanks for this advice Steve.
On friendly sites like this we tend to feel at home after a while and start to reveal all sorts of bits of personal information about ourselves for all to see. I've noticed that there are invariably a number of "guests" viewing this site every day most of whom, I guess, are thoroughly benign in their intentions. But now I've started to become suspicious and am wondering if, occassionally, we have one or two unwelcome guests visiting whose purpose is to case the joint. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/detective.gif[/img]

DB7

If you're ever concerned post in the members area as guests can't view them.

Steve Crook

And don't give your email address on screen in the main forum in its full form.
Do it in a form that humans can make sense of but that any programs scanning web sites like this won't be able to read.

Suggested forms are:
Adding an extra character at the end and then telling people to leave it off when they email.

"speaking it out" in words like "Steve at Brainstorm dot co dot uk"

Adding another word or two like Steve@nospam.Brainstorm.co.uk and telling people to take out the "nospam."

Or even Steve@The.Rubbish.Brainstorm.co.uk - then you can tell people to "take out The.Rubbish."

Steve

DB7

It's sometimes a good idea to put your email address into Google and see if it shows up. If it does it can be spidered.