eBay question. . .

Poststructural Pub
1

Sorry to dump on the whistlers, but I get straight answers here. I received this today in my email:


Dear > my ebay name> ,

Hello, I regret that I must contact you this way and in this situation but I have no clue what is going on. I have in my eBay menu a reminder that I have to pay for a cell phone that I bought from you $480. This is very annoying since I’ve didn’t even place a bid and I am a new member. I want to ask you if this is a mistake or something else? I will not pay for the item. But still there is a worry and I do hope that you will clear the situation. Please advice what to do. I am waiting for your reply in my email address to advice me about this.Thank you, Andrew - eBay member

Please respond to the question on eBay by clicking the button below.

Respond Now

Thank you,

Is this the next generation of the eBay/Paypal spoofs? I simply passed it on to spoof@ebay.com, but want to be aware if I need to get involved with something.

Thanks for the input,

2

Sounds weird to me…

3

Tyg, can you PM me the user’s ebay name? I’ll see what I can find out in past history stuff.

4

go into your own history, and make sure there’s no buying or selling on your ID that you aren’t aware of. Your account “may” have been hijacked.

BTW - if you have Pay Pal, check that, too.

Missy

5

Nothing to worry about, Tyg, don’t reply to him, and you were right to forward to ebay - though I suspect he’s already been picked up by them.

I checked out the ID. He joined Ebay on February 10th of this year, registered as in the Phillipines, and has one feedback. That one is from a user with zero feedback and in France (who joined on Jan 31st). He’s only bid on that one auction in the last thirty days (“2gume mestecate” - sporting goods - in Singapore for 200 singapore dollars. Interesting that he supposedly bought it from a seller in France), and has not sold anything in the last 30 days.

The clincher is that he’s listed as “not a registered user”. This means that Ebay has pulled his account. I suspect he’s been sending emails out through the “contact a member” buttons on ebay (the end of your email resembled that form) trying to confuse people into giving him details about accounts or whatever. At any rate, he’s been pulled from the system, so he violated Ebay’s rules in some severe form and went bye bye. Impressive to have done so in 11 days!

Looking again at the closed auction from Singapore, it was on the 18th and lasted for a whopping 10 minutes! The seller ended early. VERY early, as they’re not even searchable for a few hours after posting. Feedback was left for your man 2 minutes after auction end. This has “scam setup” written all over it! lol

Edited to add that I checked the activity on your account for the last thirty days too, and I didn’t see anything in the selling section, nor anything out of character in the bidding section. If you go to “My Ebay” it will tell you about anything for the last 60 days, but I highly doubt there will be anything wrong there. I don’t think you’ve been hijacked.

6

Who buys a cell phone for $480?

7

Beth, you’re great! Thanks for doing my homework for me. How did you find out where he was from? I spend so little time on eBay that I don’t know how to go looking for these things.

Irritating slimy scum. . .wish I knew a good way to give him a whammy of some sort. I think its going to have to be a metaphysical one, though.

8

I have a page bookmarked from when I did a search on myself to see what I had bid on (easier than logging into My Ebay all the time). All I had to do to pull up his info is substitute his username in the url for my own, and then click on his feedback number. The feedback screen came up, and on the right hand side it says when he joined ebay and where he is from - or at least where he says he is from. It’s a good way to keep an eye on whether or not I might have to do international shipping for a bidder on my auctions.

9

Hey look! It happened again, and now I’VE GOT THE O’RIORDANS! Ain’t life grand???

I wonder if Jessie knows I won?


Dear my > ebay name again> ,

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE WON THE AUCTION LISTED BELOW! Winner Item Number: 7300215411 Product:O’Riordan Huge Irish Whistle Set - Flute tinwhistle seller Email: > steventros@aol.com > (!!!ATENTION!!! Do Not REPLY To This Email, Contact the seller to the email address listed above!) Shipping: FREE THANK YOU FOR YOUR WINNING BID. WE HAVE JUST BEEN INFORMED THAT IT IS ABOUT THE CANCELLATION OF THE WINNING BID AND WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED BY EBAY TO CONTACT THE NEXT HIGHEST BIDDER OF OUR AUCTION. THE TRANSACTION IS TO BE MADE BY: WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER. DELIVERY IS BETWEEN 2-5 DAYS. PLEASE, NOTE THAT THE COURIERS REQUIRE A SIGNATURE WHEN THE PARCEL IS DELIVERED. (!!!ATENTION!!! Do Not REPLY To This Email, Contact the seller to the email address listed above!)

Please respond to the question on eBay by clicking the button below.

Respond Now

Thank you,
dumaurier007

10

I can’t believe my good fortune! I won the O’Riordans AGAIN!!! Or does this mean that I won them twice? Maybe I get TWO sets???


Dear > ebay user name,

DO NOT REPLY ON THIS EMAIL JUST CONTACT THE SELLER ON THIS:> portos22m@yahoo.com > You expressed interest in an item titled “O’Riordan Huge Irish Whistle Set - Flute tinwhistle” Item number: 7300215411 by bidding, however the auction has ended with another member as the high bidder. In compliance with eBay policy, the seller of that item is making this Second Chance Offer to you at your bid price. The seller has issued this Second Chance Offer because either the winning bidder was unable to complete the transaction or the seller has duplicate items for sale. If you accept this offer, you will be able to exchange Feedback with the seller and will be eligible for eBay services associated with a transaction,such as fraud protection. To purchase this item contact the seller at > portos22m@yahoo.com > To learn more about Second Chance Offer go to:> http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/personal_offer.html > Thank you, eBay SafeHarbor Investigations Team

Please respond to the question on eBay by clicking the button below.

Respond Now

Thank you,
3

Then again, maybe its time for me to cancel my eBay accounts until they remove this most recent irritation.

11

Good grief, that’s unheard of (three in the space of days). I haven’t logged into my ebay email in a while, I wonder how many of those I might have..

12

Beth, I wonder if its because of the high ticket item. Thankfully no more this morning, so I feel like I can go to work and not be swamped with the stuff.

13

Hmm? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.

Usually when you win an eBay auction you immediately get two e-mails, one from the seller and one from eBay. The sellers usually feels a need to say something customized, and eBay has always sent out e-mail to the winning bidder. The one from eBay is the important one, though, in reality, and should be matched by the same information on the website.

Information from a seller not confirmed by an eBay email or not matched on the website is likely fraudulent.

14

Yeah, it’s a con, and the hook is the “click the button below”. If he was just sending you email, it wouldn’t contain a button, right? So the button takes you to his phishy eBay lookalike which prompts you for your username and password and next thing you know he’s got access to your account.

-Rich

15

All three appeared to have come thru eBay…I reset my password on eBay to be certain. It just makes me jittery.

16

Not necessarily, Rich, but possibly. Ebay has a system of private messages where you click on a button to send a person an email. Ebay sends the email, and at the bottom of the email it says “click here to respond” - again through ebay’s system. It keeps email addresses private (unless you check the box that says display email address) and it helps ebay keep tabs on private communications regarding auctions, since it is against their policy for individuals to make off-ebay deals.

The email button could have been legit, or it could have been a scam - without seeing the email I can’t tell.

17

You want 'em? I think they’re still in my trashbox.

18

Sure, you can send me some if you want. :slight_smile: Didja forward the last two to ebay as well?

19

Spoof??? This email arrived today…

*** BenchmarkPortal is an official partner of eBay and is conducting independent
customer satisfaction surveys at the request of eBay. BenchmarkPortal will not
request any of your personal or confidential information. ***

Dear eBay Community member,

On 02/22/05 I replied to the email message you sent to customer support. As
part of eBay’s commitment to excellence, I want to make sure I met your needs
in my response. Would you please take a minute to answer a few questions to
let me know how I did?

http://ebay.benchmarkportal.com/ebay/survey.taf?survey_id=716&user_id=92DB3AEF-7663-4D7C-AE6E-862B5EF47D7C

Please copy and paste the entire web address above into the address field of
your browser.

NOTE: Please respond within five days so that you can provide timely feedback
to me, Waylan. AFTER 5 DAYS, THIS INVITATION WILL EXPIRE.

Thank you for your help!

Waylan
eBay Customer Support

If you want to be excluded from future surveys and survey correspondence, please
click below:

http://ebay.benchmarkportal.com/ebay/opt_out.taf?id=92DB3AEF-7663-4D7C-AE6E-862B5EF47D7C

*** Protect your eBay Password and Your Personal Information ***

eBay treats your personal information with the utmost care, and our
Privacy Policy is designed to protect you and your information. eBay
will not request personal information (password, credit card numbers,
pin numbers, passwords, or Social Security numbers) in an email or in
most cases, our surveys. However, there are rare exceptions when eBay
performs usability surveys that measure participants’ actual use of
eBay. In these exceptional cases, personal information is sometimes
needed, and participants are told explicitly in advance what will be
required. Additionally, participants are given contact information in
order to validate that the survey is indeed from eBay. For more
information on how to protect your eBay password and your account, click
here
http://pages.ebay.com/help/account_protection.html?ssPageName=CMDV:AB0008


eBay truly respects the opinions of its Members. We are contacting you
for customer support improvement purposes only. All information collected is
confidential and the information you provide will be used strictly within eBay’s
Privacy Policy > http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-priv.html

eBay has commissioned BenchmarkPortal to conduct this study among eBay
members. To review BenchmarkPortal’s privacy policy, please go to
http://ebay.benchmarkportal.com/ebay/bmp_privacy.pdf

20

[quote=“Tyghress”]Spoof??? This email arrived today…

[quote]
It looks dubious to me, but have you actually had a customer service interaction
with ‘Waylan’? But even if you did, why is no case number included? All the customer
support organizations I deal with assign a case number and refer to it in -all- followups,
including satisfaction surveys.

If anyone ever asks you for any personal info (password, social security, credit card
number, home address, home phone, whatever), then it’s almost certainly a scam.
They aren’t quite doing that here, but are mumbling something about ‘exceptional
circumstances,’ which is a red-flag to me.

Clever as this verbiage is, I’m extremely suspicious of any claim that you should do an
ebay-related activity somewhere other than ebay.com.

My inclination would be to assume it’s a ploy of some kind. It could even be a ploy just to
get you to go to the named webpage (visiting a webpage with Internet Explorer for
Windows exposes you to a whole host of possibilities for infecting your computer with
stuff, but any webpage that does so is likely to be taken down if it has a high profile… so
ploys like that would be one way to get visitors). Or it could be a more complex ploy,
get you to fill out the survey, believe the site is legitimate, then ‘select’ you for a followup
survey under the ‘special circumstances.’

(On the other hand, maybe eBay is stupid enough to create a legitimate survey that
sends up warning flares all over… I wouldn’t put it past them. But I wouldn’t risk
following that link, much less filling out any surveys).

As for the second-chance stuff, and any ebay offer like that, always check it by
going to ebay.com, by hand, not by clicking any link in the mail, and seeing what ebay’s
system has to say. If ebay doesn’t think it was sold to you, or bought from you, it
wasn’t, and should be ignored, or forwarded to abuse.

The simple way to think about is, if it isn’t on eBay, it isn’t from eBay.
If it’s in an e-mail, assume it’s a scam until proven otherwise.

Paranoid, but 99% accurate, unfortunately.