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Last Post Jul 7, 2009 3:08 AM by: brian.martin1
Replies: 108
zigmund@ebay.com
Posts: 380

***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Feb 3, 2005 12:08 PM
Hi everyone,

We've had multiple threads about spoof emails tacked to the top of this board for awhile, so I've consolidated the information into this one thread.

Background
Spoof emails are emails that claim to be from a company (such as eBay) that typically ask you to provide personal information like passwords, bank account info, credit card information, etc. They can look just like a real email from that company, using the same language, logos, etc, and even have a reasonable "From" address (for example: members@ebay.com). But they're actually sent from fraudsters who've created this fake email (even the "From" address can be faked) so they can try to acquire your personal information to use themselves later.

How you can protect yourself
-NEVER give out personal information in an email.
-If an email supposedly from eBay asks for any of this information, or looks even the slightest bit suspicious, forward it to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com. We'll check it out and let you know whether it's real or not (and that also helps us shut these people down).
-Check out the resources below.

Resources
Make sure you review eBay's spoof tutorial here: Link

eBay's Security Center also has good information: Link

Member ol_grandad also recommends this site for more information: Link

And of course, email anything the least bit suspicious to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com.

Zigmund
Community Development

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what**ever
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Feb 3, 2005 1:50 PM
Kudos to Ziggy and OG!


and No... ICan'tEBN
Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level. Then beat you with experience!
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw

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petlyakov_pe-8
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Feb 6, 2005 2:09 AM
If You use Mozilla Firefox the simplest way to check if an email that seems to be from ebay but you think is a spoof is to click on the blue link in the email ( although caution should be taken here so make sure your antivirus and firewalls are up to date) then look at the address bar it should turn a yellowish colour and a lock should appear on one end this cannot be faked by a spoofer as they will not have the correct certificates for this. I the address bar stays white then forward the email to spoof@ebay.com or simply erase the email. In IE a lock should appear next to the zone box in the lower right hand corner and as always check spelling go to ebay and compare the email signin to the signin through ebay if you,re still not sure erase or foreword to spoof@ebay.com
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gsusruls
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Feb 16, 2005 5:32 AM
Actually, it's even simpler than that.

I received a really genuine looking email from "ebay" claiming my account may have been compromised. Of course, personal information would be necessary to resolve the situation (they always want a credit card). A link was provided to ebay's login page. I took the link.

Fortunatley, I happen to be an html/javascript "guru" (I know my way around), and rather than logging in, I checked the source for the page. If you're not familiar with escape sequences, often used in javascript, it's basically a hard-to-read set of characters with lots of percent signs and other ascii. This souce had no apparent html, just a series of excaped characters. I decoded it, and determined this was the page source for a frameset. Hello! The login was indeed connected to ebay's login page (thus authenticity could be checked), but the information was being forewarded in another frame window to an angelfire site.

Basically it was designed so a less trained eye would click the link, believe they were at ebay's login page, and sign in. They find themselves in their own account, so they are convinced it was from ebay, but nothing seems amiss; they they disregard it. Meanwhile, another (likely malicious) individual has their login information.

Later, I recieved another email from ebay. This one had the same problem. The difference was, they did not give me a link. They told me to log into my ebay account, but I typed the url myself (just www.ebay.com), ensuring the actual ebay website. Sure enough, there was a page forcing me to change my password. This went successfully.

Moral of the story - for an authentic billing or account problem, an organization with whom you have an account will not send you a link. Rather, they tell you to login to your own account, thus ensuring authenticity.

Now, I will take a deep breath...





"What on Earth am I in here doing math on this beautiful day?! This is the only life I've got!" - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes", Bill Watterson
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33nhl
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***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Mar 2, 2005 4:56 PM
Hi all

this past week i have recieved about 9 spoof emails iether from PAY PAL or EBAY about my account this is getting out of hand lot of crooks out ther looking to steal your hard earned money and sensitive personal info.
these emails look to good that you dont know if its the real thing or not...
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cafemochadecaf
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Mar 10, 2005 4:54 PM
Wow, I get several spoof emails a week. I forward them all to ebay. I wonder if they ever find out who is sending them......or if these crooks are smart enough to remain elusive.
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beadhappys
Posts: 22,224
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***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Mar 10, 2005 9:20 PM
New crooks all the time.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Siggies can be picked up from the link on my About Me page.
Click on the siggy first to show it full-sized, then right-click and save. :)






“There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast” Anonymous
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beadhappys
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***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Mar 14, 2005 8:29 PM
If your account informations are not updated within the next 72 hours,

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Siggies can be picked up from the link on my About Me page.
Click on the siggy first to show it full-sized, then right-click and save. :)






“There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast” Anonymous
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sbirdasn
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Mar 30, 2005 7:49 PM
More dangerous still, I just received a spoof email that has almost the entire email body acting as a huge url button. That way even an accidental click on what you think is going to unselect a previous selection of portions of the email actually activates the link that takes you to the spoof site.

Very tricky, and hard to avoid. I think it's time that ebaY dumped *all* HTML formatting in emails so users can set their browsers to *not* show HTML in emails, making it harder to fool mail recipients that are ebaY customers.

Most ebaY'ers are not that savvy in the Java/HTML department, so they will have a hard time telling the differences themselves.

Just a thought.

Oh, BTW, I will forward the email to spoof@ebay.com.

Sbirdasn
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taco7775
Posts: 34
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***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Mar 31, 2005 10:15 AM
I receive a fraud ebay email about once a day. I just forword it to spoof@ebay.com. They then report back to me whether or not it was fake
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cacflower
Posts: 3
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Apr 8, 2005 8:48 PM
I do not agree with this good Spoof thing with Ebay. I really did want to believe this was a great thing, but now I am discouraged because I had a winning bidder & as always sent her an invoice. After a few days I sent her another as I had not heard from her. Then after a few more days I sent her an Email which is what Ebay said we should do if there is no contact. I got a letter from Ebay saying I was being investagated. I sent it to Spoof.com & recieved a reply that it was not Ebay. I did not even know it was this person but I think now it was because now I have a dispute going on with her & in the dipute she states I am really not from Ebay.. Whats with this, she is the one that bid on my aucton & now I am a bad guy sending spoof mail to her, she says. Ebay told her my letter was not from Ebay so she thinks I am a fraud! I swear Ebay really screwed up this one. I called her to apoligize & tell her to forget the whole transaction, I thought she was going to have a heart attack on the phone telling me I was not really from Ebay!! Oh well, as you can tell I am really upset. I even called Live Help to no avail & I really like Live Help but on this subject they were no help either. I wish someone would contact me from Ebay but I will be surprised if they do.. Hope all that read this can understand my story..
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ookapoo
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Apr 13, 2005 7:55 AM
Please beware of this! They also use a company with the name of BidPay as their method of payment. If you are not sure forward the email to the Ebay, PayPal or BidPay help email and they can verify it for you. Dont fall victim to this like I did!
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the_grot_shoppe
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***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Jul 1, 2005 6:51 AM
here's the latest spoof I got:

In order to WIN a gift certificate of $100 you have to stay logged in on eBay more than 30 minutes today.
Click on the link bellow to go directly to MyeBay:

Link

If the button above does not work::

1.Write down this confirmation code: 95302
2.Type in or copy and paste this link into your Web browser: Link
Make sure you copy this link exactly and do not add extra spaces.
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danedeedee
Posts: 105
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Jul 2, 2005 7:16 AM
I too receive several spoofs a day. I receive them from Ebay, Paypal, Banks. I never click on a link from these emails and I agree with the above: log in directly to ebay or paypal and if there is a problem with your account they will let you know when you log in and then you can take care of it.
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hankyholic
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Re: ***Protect Yourself from Spoof Emails***

Jul 5, 2005 5:03 PM
Just today I received an email from "ebay" saying the bid I had placed on a particular item had been cancelled. It allowed me to link to the item and also the reason as to why it was cancelled. Of course, I didn't go through the link. I went to the ebay site and put in the number of the item in the Advanced Search and found out it was a legitimate item, but I had not even placed the bid on the item!
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