learn how to protect yourself from the countrys fastest growing fraud,idenity theft!2 minutes of your time reading this could save you 1,000's of dollars and lots of sleepless nights

Hi ebayers, I just wanted to let you all know about a "new" tactic the fake "Ebay" emailers and scamers are using to gather your personal information.this has really been going on for a long time but its new to many as they havent seen it before. I have seen probably hundreds of emails from these people claiming that they're from "ebay" and that my account will be "limited" or "suspended" due to "unauthorized activity" or if I don't "update" my information by clicking on the link in the email I could be permanently suspended....yadda yadda yadda

But, I will say, this one below is real tricky!

Just recently, I received an email from "ebay" stating that I have received an unpaid item strike. This just floored me, as I had no clue what  they were talking about, and being curious, I had to read the email to see what this was about. I knew  that I had always paid for every item i had ever won, so this had to be a mistake. Sure enough, it was for some item that I had not even heard of and didnt bid on!!

And then there was the telltale "click on this link" which led to an area where I could enter my user ID and password to view this so-called report. All I can say is, it's a good thing that there is an Account Guard feature on the Ebay toolbar, which notified me immediately that it wasn't a legitimate ebay site, otherwise, I could have been in some real trouble !!

ALSO: this happens daily to me as i sell a high volume,I just received a "receipt" from "paypal" for supposedly purchasing an item from a seller that I have never heard of. These are a little trickier to spot as fake, however, here is what told me it wasn't real:

1. It was a receipt for an item I never purchased
2. The "receipt" did not address me by my real name. Instead, it said "dear ebay member" (PayPal will use your real name but watchout there getting good because im starting to get them addressed with my real name)
3. The body of the message contained a link to "dispute" the sale (It opens a window to enter your ID and password!!) even a real dispute paypal doesnt email you asking you to dispute something.if your the buyer why would paypal be asking you to dispute something??
4. The entire body was a gif image (Nice try!!)

As you can see, these scam artists are pretty crafty, and will do just about anything to get your attention and the bottom line is they want your money$$$$$$$$.

I wanted to make other members aware that these scam artists are STILL OUT THERE, and **DO NOT**I REPEAT**DO NOT**EVER** give these people your personal information, such as your password, user ID, credit card/bank info, etc.

These people are scam artists and ultimately WILL USE YOUR INFORMATION TO COMMIT IDENTITY THEFT and even EMPTY YOUR BANK ACCOUNTS,PAYPAL ETC.!!!

The reason I can say this for certain is that a couple of years ago, it happened to MY FRIEND!.

They stole HIS identity, and every cent he had in the bank to go with it. You can't even imagine the h*ll he went through, between closing all of his bank accounts, and dealing with the police, who couldn't do anything because it was being done from an offshore account somewhere overseas. Nice, huh?they setup in the uk but the bulk of the scammers are in africa.ZIGERIA is one of the worst havens for internet scammers!

All I can say is, if in doubt, open a separate window and type  EBAY.COM and you can go into your account and check for yourself without worry.if ebay has sent you a alret or you have a account issue your screen will be flagged red and it will automaticly direct to the problem to read in your messages.same with paypal if in doubt go to PAYPAL.COM and log into account there and if theres a issue you will have a small box at the top of the screen telling you that.

One thing you can always do is to change your ebay & paypal passwords every once in awhile, and for goodness sakes, don't use the same password for both!! A more secure password will contain a combination of letters and numbers. (Just a little tip)

So, to make a long story short: EBAY WILL NEVER ASK YOU FOR YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IN AN EMAIL.

If you receive an email that asks for your personal information, IT IS NOT FROM EBAY.

It is from someone trying to fraudulantly scam you out of your personal information and God knows what else.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!!

I sincerely hope that these people are brought to justice so that we can all trade in peace.

Want to help spread the word? The more people that select the "yes" button for this guide being helpful, the higher up on the 'Guide List' it gets, thus getting more exposure for eBayers to read and learn. It is our goal to completely eliminate some of these fogers and frauds. Possible? Probaly not, but the more people we educate about the existing problems in this hobby, the more money they save, and the less sellers are apt to try and rip people off