Just a heads up...

**bamamomto4** · 07-30-2006, 03:58 AM

My ebay account was hijacked last week and someone listed about 100 high dollar items on my account. BE CAREFUL!!!!!! Its taken me DAYS to get everything changed and back to where I can use my account.

Its been a nightmare. Please just be careful..always sign out when you close the page out,change your password and security question every so often and the tech guy I just spoke to get back into my account suggested using different symbols in the password like p@ssw0rd.....and if you think its fake enter a false password...

Mine happened by something coming up for me to sign in to view an auction.Even clicking on my auctions where I have my page saved in my favs.... I just thought it was something new ebay was doing to prevent this type thing and its someone getting peoples passwords.

**Droppedonmyhead** · 07-30-2006, 05:28 AM

How terrible and what a mess! You know, it's a shame that people spend so much time doing negative things against other people. Think of the good they could do for the world if they used it to do positive things.

**bumplett** · 07-30-2006, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by Droppedonmyhead

How terrible and what a mess! You know, it's a shame that people spend so much time doing negative things against other people. Think of the good they could do for the world if they used it to do positive things.

That's the truth!! If these morons would use the abilities for good reasons, the world would be a far less depressing place!!

I'm soooooo sorry you had to deal with this! Ebay is fantastic & I'm sure they will do everything they can to prevent this from happening in the future........... I hope.

so basically, are you telling me NOT to sign in from any other screen than the start screen? (( I'm a little confused trying to picture how this happened ))

GOOD LUCK!

**MelissaMarie** · 07-30-2006, 11:50 AM

Thank you for the heads up, it's much appreciated. I'm on Ebay all the time.

**babetteq** · 07-30-2006, 12:05 PM

Thank you so much for the heads up. I'm sorry this happened to you. What a mess! I guess there's always someone trying to get something for nothing eh? Good tips and I'm glad things are sorting out.

-babs

**Mom23boys** · 07-30-2006, 04:21 PM

Thanks for the warning Tammy. I hope you get this all resolved shortly.

**bamamomto4** · 07-31-2006, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by bumplett

That's the truth!! If these morons would use the abilities for good reasons, the world would be a far less depressing place!!

I'm soooooo sorry you had to deal with this! Ebay is fantastic & I'm sure they will do everything they can to prevent this from happening in the future........... I hope.

so basically, are you telling me NOT to sign in from any other screen than the start screen? (( I'm a little confused trying to picture how this happened ))

GOOD LUCK!

I have my ebay sell page saved in my favs,so when I have auctions listed,besides goign to ebay and all that I click,favorites,ebay,then my user name. But a few weeks ago I noticed everytime I did that,it asked me to sign in. I really didnt hink anything of it.Just thought it was logging me out and me having to sign back in or whatever,but the tech guy said no....thats how they got my password.He told me,If it ever happens,the best thing to do is go to the ebay home page and start all over (besides going froma saved link) or,using a false password.....if it accepts that false password...then someone is trying to get your real one.

He also told me to download these httP;//pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar

and to read http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial

He knew thats how they got mine because I told him I ALWAYS sent those fake emails from ebay to the spoof@ebay.com and when I said I noticed I was always having to log-in...they got me. I always ran my virus protector and nothing showed...no spyware...nothing..?!

Anyways...be careful.Had that guy not caught this for me,I would have a bigger mess and lots of neg feedback.

heres and email he sent me that "they " do...

He is very nice,we spoke on the phone and he sincerly cares and cant stand people doing this. He has made this like his "job". Heck...he called me 3 times from England!!! Very nice guy!!

****************

Subject: RE: from bamamomto4

You are very Welcome Tammy

We do all we can to protect the innocent victims on ebay -

This is what we are up against & it looks like we are fighting a losing battle !!!!!

Good Luck Dave

HOW THE ROMANIAN FRAUDSTERS TRICK EBAY INTO MAKING MAKING MILLIONS FROM INNOCENT BIDDERS IN EUROPE AND THE U.S.A.

I am an ebay fraudbuster working with a team of fellow fraudbusters who devote all our spare time to targeting the fraudsters operating on ebay – these fraudsters are part of a well organised crime syndicate from Romania who are making hundreds of thousands of pounds, dollars & euros each week out of the misery of innocent bidders who are tricked out of parting with their money for goods that simply do not exist.

This is how the scam works………

The whole concept of the ebay auction is based on trust, this trust is illustrated by earning positive feedback for each transaction shown against the user ID of the ebay member. Each time an item is bought & sold the buyer & seller exchange comments (called feedback) about the transaction, these comments can be negative if the transaction turns out to be unsatisfactory or it can be positive if both parties are satisfied that the transaction has been successful. The amount of positive feedbacks determine the trustworthiness of the member, and so the more positive feedbacks the member has the more trustworthy he is deemed to be.

What happens next undermined the whole system…………

A team of Romanian hackers send innocent ebay members an email which has every appearance of being sent from ebay itself - the email asks the member to confirm all his membership details including his user Identity and his password. The unsuspecting member then discloses his ebay identity & password. - From that moment on, the Innocent members account has been “captured” - the hacker then sells this information to the Romanian fraudsters and the scam is hatched. The fraudster using the innocent members ID, takes over his account and places a listing, pretending that he is that particular member. The listing looks very appealing with an excellent positive feedback record showing that the seller is totally trustworthy, and there seems no reason to mistrust this seller. However all is not as it seems…..the listing is unique in so much as it lists as many as thirty desirable high value items such as digital cameras, lenses, laptops, computers, gps systems, plasma tv’s, the latest model of cellphones, and even Wimbledon or Cup Final Tickets, although the fraudster has listed all these bogus (non-existent) items into an auction, the last thing he wants is for anyone to bid, so he cunningly includes a clause into his listing saying. “ Contact me for an excellent buy-it-now-price – make sure you contact me before you bid otherwise your bid will be cancelled”- he then includes his personal email address in the wording, so that he makes sure that the innocent bidder contacts him directly (outside ebay.) Once that contact has been made the Scam starts to unfold…..The unwitting buyer asks the Fraudster – what is the best price he can offer? The reply that always comes back is that the item in question will be offered brand new at less than half the recommended retail price. (Something an unsuspecting buyer usually cannot resist!) The fraudster then takes the scam a stage further (To gain extra Trust) by assuring the “prospective victim” that he wants the deal safely done by ebay’s rules and regulations. He then asks for all the “victims” details (name, address etc) Then the “victim” receives an official looking email purporting to come from ebay’s Square Deal Security Section that verifies the fraudsters trustworthiness & creditworthiness and asks that the payment be sent by Western Union.

Although ebay never recommends Western Union payment to strangers, on this occasion it appears that ebay approves, and so the “Victim” sends his payment using W.U.

Once payment is sent by Western Union, the fraudster collects the cash from any Western Union office in the world using bogus ID and of course the goods never arrive, and the Scam is Complete. The Fraudster then relists all this bogus non-existent items, hijacks another ebay members account and starts all over again.

These Scams are by no means a rarity, each day our Team detect over 200 Deliberate Scams designed to fool innocent “ebayers” into parting with hundreds of thousands of pounds, dollars and euros under false pretences. Whilst bay will say that less than 1% of their listings are Scams, that equates to an unacceptably large percentage considering the millions of items being bought and sold each day.

When we bought these scams to ebay’s attention, they declined to comment. It would seem that while our Scambusting Team can detect over 200 Scams each Day all using stolen identities, ebay’s security department does not have the facilities or manpower to locate them or prevent them. The system used for reporting Fraud and Scams on ebay is both inefficient and slow, ebay will consider all Scams reported and will promise to act on them within 24 hours. Unfortunately that 24 hours gives the Fraudster enough time to place his Bogus listing on a 1 Day Auction and disappear by the time ebay reacts, then it is too late, many innocent members have been hooked, then the fraudster repeats his Scam again using a Different Hi-jacked account and so the reporting sequence starts all over again without any positive action being taken at all. The Fraudster has no way of being detected and no way of being bought to justice.

We have suggested a simple new rule that could stop these frauds happing once and for all, but ebay will not listen.

Consequently our Scambusting team are forced to “Take the Law into our own hands”and act as self styled Vigilantes.

We place large Bogus Bids on these Scam_Auctions to inflate the price and hopefully deter other innocent bidders from bidding and getting ripped off. We always warn any bidders that they are involved in a Bogus-Auction and we try and warn the Owner of the “Stolen” account that his account has been hijacked by a Fraudster and urge him to get the listings cancelled immediately before his good feedback record is wrecked . We open ebay accounts of our own and invent User names with a built-in warning message, eg: “Warning_This_is_a_Fraud_Auction” and so every time we bid we leave our message that cannot be ignored.

Despite all our efforts, we have seen the Scams on ebay grow out of all proportion and we can see the day come soon when ebay will no longer be a safe place to buy and sell anymore.

The total lack of co-operation from ebay in preventing these Scams in the first place has indicated to us that sadly Crime does pay & we have all the evidence to prove it. We would welcome to hear from any Victim of ebay Scams and ebay’s response to offer compensation !!!

Contact the.ebay.fraudbuster@gmail.com or

ebay.gangbuster@gmail.com

But if you must bid, stay vigilant.

Dave J.

**bamamomto4** · 07-31-2006, 12:49 AM

Oppps I goofed on a link http://pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar

Sorry!!!

**bamamomto4** · 07-31-2006, 12:51 AM

btw...I havent downloaded this yet,so if anyone does,please post feddback about it

**bamamomto4** · 07-31-2006, 12:51 AM

dang it.....sorry for the typos..... should read feedback......

**babetteq** · 07-31-2006, 05:03 AM

wow! That's a lot of scamming!!! It's a darn shame that ebay doesn't have a whole team of fraudbusters working on their site for them like these guys. Really, the whole spine of ebay is jeopardized when people stop trusting it as a safe place to buy and sell.

babs