It’s been a while since I have seen any eBay scam messages in my inbox, but it seems I am beginning to get a new batch of them recently. These scammers are clever and they are always thinking up new and innovative ways to scam people.
This most recent ones attempts to fool victims into believing that there is a buyer interested in something they are selling on eBay. Granted, not everyone is selling something on eBay, but with the volume of messages these scammers send out, they are bound to hit on a good number of potential victims that do indeed have something currently for sale on eBay.
As with almost all of these “phishing” scams, the idea is to get you to click on the web links that are contained right in the e-mail message. Clicking the links will take you to a web site that is very nicely set up to look like the eBay site but really isn’t eBay at all.
Unsuspecting victims who do click on the links and visit the phony site will probably attempt to log into their eBay account and at that point the scammer has the information they wanted. They will have logged the eBay username and password and can then use it to log into the real eBay site with the victims account and do whatever dirty deed they choose to do.
Here is the most recent eBay scam message I received. As you can see, it comes from someone who wants potential victims to believe that the sender is an eBay user with the username “pugpuppiedog”. Now how could someone with such a “cute” eBay username, and who obviously just adores pug puppies be up to no good? That name was probably not chosen by accident. The scammer will use whatever tactics they can to avoid arousing suspicion.
Another variation on the eBay scam I have seen lately is in the form of a rather strongly-worded message that is made to look like it is coming from an eBay user that has purchased something from you and has not received their item and is theatening to call the police to report you as a criminal.
I must admit, I did a double-take when I first saw that one and wondered if I had somehow received a legitimate message that was intended for someone else! After I examined the message a little more closely, I was able to uncover the telltale signs that it was obviously a scam.
A good rule of thumb is to be initially suspicious of every e-mail message you receive that is trying to get you to perform some type of action — like clicking on a link or visiting some web site. As I said above, these scammers are always coming up with new tactics so don’t let your guard down.
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