Question
I got an email purportedly from eBay (I assume it's not) with an item I bought on eBay and a suggestion I set up as a seller on eBay to resell it. Very fancy email - multi colors. There were all sorts of links so I assume it was an attempt to harvest data. But how did they get my email address in connection with the item purchase (and it was an item I purchased)? We're lucky they give us emails for our own buyers. Maryanne
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I had an email like that in My Messages on this account about a book I bought suggesting I could resell it....
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I thought they said they wouldn't send emails with links - and that one way you could spot spoofs. Maryanne
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Last night I also received one (email) like that. Definitely from eBay, with a format similar to "resell your stuff" the half.com emails. It might depend on how you've set your eBay notification preferences; the message was shown on the MyEby page AND sent in email.
Another "questionable" or at least confusing source of off-site email is LiveHelp satisfaction followup email. eBay apparently outsources this, and the email arrives from questionmarket.com
along the same line:
Several months ago, I received a survey invite from "vividence". I think there was an eBay landing page, or 'validation' page (you clicked to a *.ebay.com page then clicked through to vividence from there). They (vividence) required you download an ActiveX control to participate in the survey & it was CLEARLY spyware -- logging/reporting which pages you visited and how long you remained on each page during the process of performing a search and/or creating a listing via the SYI interface. I was upset that there was no UNinstall provided at the conclusion of the survey. I had a heck of a time manually weeding all the tendrils of that component from my Windows registry & added vividence.com to my proxy blocklist.
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So they are emailing our buyers and suggesting they resell the items they bought from us. Suggesting they become our competitors essentially. Geesh. Maryanne
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You'll love what I'm supposed to resell. Not!
You Purchased-Lost In Space
You Paid-.99
Current Price-.01
Of course the email says: The actual price you achieve for your items may be lower than the range displayed.
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Sure, list that sucker and make a penny!
I hope everyone they email to forwards them to spoof - maybe it will eventually dawn on the dufus's (is that a word?) that they look like fraud.
Maryanne
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Forward to spoof with initial comment like "Obviously an intelligent company like eBay would never do something as stupid and slimy as suggesting sellers' customers set themselves up as competitors. Just to confirm this email is a criminal enterprise harvesting ID's and passwords, since it shows supposed links of a type eBay has assured us legitimate email would NEVER contain... Right?"
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Originally Posted by Python
Forward to spoof with initial comment like "Obviously an intelligent company like eBay would never do something as stupid and slimy as suggesting sellers' customers set themselves up as competitors. Just to confirm this email is a criminal enterprise harvesting ID's and passwords, since it shows supposed links of a type eBay has assured us legitimate email would NEVER contain... Right?"
Can I reword that a bit and send to billing? They keep sending me a payment reminder (for an amount that is not yet due!!!) with links to pay it... I sent the first one to spoof, and got a reply that it was legit. So I replied to that one that I thought eBay said they NEVER send links in their emails???? No reply to it.
I've also received the sell your item you just bought... Well, if I hadn't wanted it I wouldn't have bought it in the first place... idiots!!!
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Originally Posted by mdubbs
I thought they said they wouldn't send emails with links - and that one way you could spot spoofs.
I thought that too until I just got an email, supposedly from eBay, saying my account has been suspended. While looking for the address to send the email along to eBay, I found this page ...
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidenc...eft-spoof.html
eBay will not send you email that includes attachments and you will not be required to enter information on a page that cannot be accessed from the eBay site. If you receive a message that appears to have been sent from eBay that includes an attachment, do not open it.
When possible, you should avoid clicking links. Instead of clicking the link, you should copy the address and paste it into the Address/Location area of your web browser. While eBay may send email that contains links, the links are provided for convenience only. You will not be required to submit sensitive information if a direct link is provided to an eBay page.