UNPAID ITEM SCAM

I have received numerous pilfering (phished)/spoof (unpaid items/second chance offers/information requests/update credit card information request) emails in my regular inbox. They do not show up in my messages on eBay. This is an indicator that they are fraudulent emails. Here is what you must do to stop them.

First check any email that come in from either eBay or PayPal to see if if appears in your eBay messages. Do not click on any links within the body of these emails. Forward them to eBay's Customer Support at Security & Resolution Center 

Then go back over your listings and see if you have displayed your email address on any listings, if you have . . . remove it or encrypt it so that it may not be "gathered" by Harvesting Software. Harvesting Software scans web pages and collects emails for junk mail and scamming and pilfering purposes.

These Harvesting Softwares are used to gather your email addresses from websites. They are often called CRAWLERS, because they crawl across websites to collect email addresses. (These crawlers are not used for fishing they are used for phishing and their catch is your email address to steal your identification.)

An easy method to encrypt your email address without using HTML codes or special software programs and still display it to buyers is to modify a few characters. Simply replace the @ symbol with the wurd at and replace the period (.) with the wurd dot. The harvesting software does will not read it as a valid email address and gather your address for scamming and spamming. Be sure to tell your customers to remover certain characters from the email to make it a valid address or make it obvious that the email is incorrect and needs correction.

This will stop most, but not all of the fraudulent emails. Remember your email has already been gathered. Also be aware that some Internet Providers sell your email address to advertisers, so you can't stop all of the bogus emails, but you can cut down on it. Once I remembered and applied my own rules of website design to my listings on eBay I have stopped receiving them. I hope you find this helpful. This is a simple method no HTML required.

Also, any listings that appear in your feedback profile that are still visible in the item number that have your email listed anywhere in the description are still subject to "gathering" by these Harvesting Softwares.

A second alternative method to encode your email address on any given web page is to use a Email Address Encoder Program. There are several available Online for free. Since I am prohibited from listing a web address link that is off eBay site, you can go to your search engine and type in Email Address Encoder, several should pop up. One excellent email encoder is offered by SYRONEX.

A third alternative is to that advantage on your IP servers option if they offer DISPOSABLE Email Addresses with your account. These addresses can be used on a website and disposed of if you start receiving a lot of spam or phishing email. Some IP servers offer as many as 10 or more disposable addresses for your account.

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