An amazing thing happens!  I get emails from Ebay & PayPal through the question address in my listings.  My account is in mortal jeopardy! I have limited account access! I paid some unrealistic amount for some item I'd never bid on in the first place. Or my credit card information needs updating. Perhaps my contact information. OH NO!

It's ridiculous how many of these things I get.

The funny thing is that the email address to which criminals send such emails is not affiliated with either my Ebay or PayPal account. This means every such email is an obvious attempt at some form of fraud. Someone wants to steal my money, steal my identity, monkey with my accounts...And we do NOT look kindly on this. 

Furthermore, if I get a spoof PayPal email to the email address through which Buyers pay me, then I know it has come from someone who has purchased from me. tsk tsk! Imagine that. A Buyer attempting to steal from a Seller. Did that person buy from me specifically to obtain my payment email addy? Probably. That's what they do.

They also send ridiculous questions in the hopes that I will respond directly from my private email instead of through Ebay's system. A Word to the wise! If you, as a Seller, are not strictly using Ebay's message system for your contacts, you are opening yourself to more of the spoof & spam mails. I may see a question in my email account. I may read it there. But I do not respond to it there. I go to my Ebay account and sign in to  use the Message Center.  I also make sure to click the Hide My Email Address selection. Until a person has actually purchased from me, they have no need of my email address. Furthermore, if you have a problem with a buyer in the future, you have already established the habit of communicating through Ebay's message system. It's much easier to forward to Ebay from there than from private email accounts.

And if the spoof/spam mail comes to the email address through which I make purchases, then I know  someone from whom I have purchased is trying to rip me off. I don't like that either.  That's a real good way to get me to never again buy from whomever I've bought in the last week or two. Considering how few purchases I make these days, it gets pretty obvious.

Buyers & Sellers Beware!

Please be aware of spoof emails that look just like a PayPal email and usually say you've sent some ridiculous amount of money for something you never even bid on.  The criminal has taken a legitimate email and used the existing HTML tags to forge an email to you. They have altered the original link so that it will send your log-in info to them. Remember, PayPal will address you BY NAME in any emails, not by your Ebay User ID. And Ebay will not address you as Dear Ebay User or by your email address.  If you see any of these salutations, then you know the email is fraudulent.  In addition, any email sent to you from Ebay will appear in your Messages within your Ebay account. If it's not there, the email is fraudulent!

Do not click anything! That little link can be very tempting, and in the heat of your I DID NOT BUY THAT fury, you might lose your mind just for a moment and...do exactly what the criminal is hoping you'll do.  They'll take your user name and password and clean you out inside of two minutes and it will take months for you to get your money back.

Protect yourself!

If you think an email looks a little fishy, open a completely separate browswer window and manually enter the Ebay or PayPal web address. They're easy enough to remember. ebay.com or paypal.com and if the message isn't in your Ebay messages or at the top of your PayPal activity log, then a criminal is attempting to rip you off!

So what do you do with the email? You go back to that message and click FORWARD. Alter nothing in the email. You don't even have to include a note. The investigators will know what to do with it. Send it to spoof@ either Ebay.com or PayPal.com and send away! Then delete the offending email. Ebay and PayPal both have teams to handle these things. Send every single one you get and know that you are doing your part. If you're not sure if something is real or not, forward it and let Ebay and PayPal tell you if it's real or not. I did this once with a survey from PayPal. Wasn't sure enough if it was legitimate and they did indeed send me back a note explaining that from time to time they send out surveys. Trust me...they won't be offended if you ask.

Sometimes the mail I receive has come from another Ebay account that has been hijacked. I get this frequently. The criminal will write me through the inquiry email address in some of my listings, but the email looks just like they sent it through the message center. Well, as I said, that inquiry email addy isn't associated with my Ebay account, so they can't have sent me anything THROUGH Ebay's system, can they? The criminal is hoping I will click the item number and log in so they can monkey with my account and generally try to ruin what I have built. tsk tsk

Fools.  They don't even know that I know how stupid they are

If you are a seller and you get this type of email--and I know you do--open a separate browser window. Without logging into Ebay, put the item number into the search box. If it doesn't come up, the email is confirmed fraudulent. Forward it to Ebay. Usually the item number doesn't exist. Sometimes it is someone else's item. I once had someone try to email me to negotiate a ridiculously low combined price for three items, to include free shipping of course, and not one of those items was even mine!

If you're going to try to rip me off, at least be a little intelligent about it.
I mean really.

I'm not writing this just to snicker at thieves, although that is great fun. If one new user reads this and learns one thing that prevents them from being a victim of fraud, then I'm pleased to write these warnings. It's an easy thing...to forget...to not know any better. That's what criminals count on. They send out hundreds of these phishmails and only need one person to be foolish and they can steal enough money to live on for the month. Or more.

Another way to protect yourself is to have very little money in your PayPal account, or have it funded through a pay-as-you-go credit card. This limits how much a criminal has immediate access to. Keep only what you expect to spend for items that are closing in the next three days. If you need to transfer more, just email the Seller and tell them. A little communication goes for miles!

Since it takes three days for money to transfer from your bank to your PayPal, you have enough time to realize that you've been hijacked. Get on the phone to PayPal immediately so they can freeze your account. Keep the phone number outside of the computer, in your physical address book or saved in your phone. Should you need to, you can call on a moment's notice rather than being horribly upset and frustrating yourself trying to frantically find the phone number on their website.

The bottom line when it comes to suspicious emails claiming to be from Ebay and PayPal is this:

If it looks too slick--DO NOT CLICK!

Happy Buying & Selling!
Tyler.

7-1-07  Ooh, there's a new scam on the loose! It doesn't look like Ebay or PayPal emails, however. Instead, it looks like one of those online greeting card notices. A 'family member' or 'colleague' has sent you an e-card. Well, since most sites I know of will TELL YOU who sent the card, I was immediately suspicious. And since I've now gotten about four of these notices from four different email addresses, I think it easy to conclude my initial suspicions. Watch yourselves out there, people! Phishers almost got intelligent there for a minute. As usual, their greed did them in.

7-28-07 Yup, another new one. Now they're sending me emails with an attachment.  Soon as I see it has an attachment, into the trash it goes. No one on legitimate business has any need to send a pdf attachment in the opening cold-call contact email. Legitimate business persons know very well their emails will be immediately deleted by the vast majority of other business persons. It's a basic matter of computer safety and health.

7-29-07 Laughing while I type this one. They almost got intelligent just for a second! I got another of the greeting card scam this morning. This time they used the American Greetings name. Unfortunately, they misspelled NEIGHBOR. A Note to criminals: Use the spell checker next time!

9-23-07 Well, the greeting card one has pretty much stopped. I'm back to spoofs from people who have purchased from me. For shame.