I, like many other modelers use ebay to buy models I cant find elsewhere snd sometimes thin out my ever growing pile of “to do kits” of models that where bought as part of larger auctions and I dont want them or I bought them and found out they were crap (zengdefue’s F-111) and resold them with a little more honesty than the original seller.
Any ways, I have just become a victim of identity and computer fraud. What I want to do is share with you the whole story in hopes that some other schuck doesn’t make a fellow modeler a victim like me.
About the 2 weeks ago I recieved an email that “looked” like it was from ebay asking telling me my account was temporarily disabled and would remain so until I updated my account informtation. It was even thoughtful enough to provide a link to update said information. When I clicked on the link it sent me to what appeared to be ebay’s log in page asking your user id and password. I did this and was linked to another page that looked like the one I filled out when I set up my ebay account asking for address, phonenumber, email info and credit card info. I was about to start filling out the info when I noticed the web page wasn’t a secure link. This got me a little curious and in another window I went to Ebay’s home page and was going to go to thier help site and ask about the email, well my computer somtimes goes straight to my account when I go to ebays web site. You can imagine I was pretty suprised when an account that was supposed to be temporarily suspended opened right up. Well I sent off my question to ebay and got an almost immediate response stating that the email I received had not originated from ebay. Well thinking “no harm” done, I hadnt entered any address,personal, or credit card info… nothing to worry about. Well I forgot that I had entered my user id and pass word on the first link thus giving the rotten lowlife who started this email access to my ebay account. First thing he or she did was change my personal info and shipping address’s so anything I won over the last two weeks was mailed to his/her address. Then changed my email address. Now I know why I stopped getting those anoying “bid confirmation” “you have been outbid” “congratulations you are the buyer for item #…” email that ebay sends out. This was a very smart move for the scum ball who did this for reasons other than the above listed. Now this is where it gets intresting. This person listed for sale
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2248790643&sspagename=STRK%3AMESO%3AIT&rd=1
If the link doesnt work the details are. 6 tickets for MLB All Stargames and the auction sold for more than $1’000 Ive tried to contact the buyer and hope he hasnt payed for this item yet but nothing so far. By changing my email addy I did get any of the email traffic between the guy that one the auction or the[:(!][censored][:(!] that listed the item.
If this sounds familiar to any of you in regaurds to your ebay accounts I suggest you quickly check your ebay accounts, change your passwords, check and change any personal info thats not correct, and also change your email passwords. Im going to post this in all the forums so hopefully no one else will get suckered like this. Please if your so inclined, copy and past this and email it to your friends especialy if you know they use ebay. Sorry for wasting your guys time with something not as nice to hear about like how my current builds are going but I want as many people as possible to know about this. I wonder if its possible to to get FSM to run an article about this seeing how they advertise the use of ebay to so much. Dont get me wrong. Ive found some awsome deals on ebay and will continue to use them. Now Im just a little bit smarter and hopefully so are you
report it to spoof@ebay.com (for US users) or spoof@ebay.co.uk (UK users) used to get them all the time , when you get them forward them straight to ebay
This is a common scam, Never log into any account from an email sign on screen
I reported the first spoof email to them… but for this I went straight to thier online chat support center and they’re helping me fix it. I know it seems like I was ranting but I just dont want to see any one become victims of stuff like this especially if all it takes is passing along info. hopefully someone else will read this before they get thier spoof email and say “you know, this sounds familiar” and not get suckered like I did. All in all Im not out too much and Im a little smarter… the other guy though, $1,125 !!! I hope the guy responsible for this meets a fellow modeler in a dark alley with an exacto knife 
right there mate ,i used to get them all the time , so i emailed ebay they told me to forward the message to them , the people who do these a total [censored]s so next time just forward them to that address
I’ve received 2 of this type of spoof mail over the last year. One was supposedly on my eBay account, almost exactly as you describe. The other was on my PayPal account, very similar scam. Like Swanny warned, I NEVER log on from an eMail, so I didn’t get taken for a ride.
Wow, sounds scarry! I hope you end up not loosing money or anything extremely valuable because of this. But I guess it’s a lesson for you. Hope everything goes allright and thanks for the heads up!
Hey Awood 23. This sounds so much like the one I got about 8 weeks ago. It was the same one. Just so happens that at that time my credit card was out of date by about 3 days. I thought that this was wrong but lucky for me that was my only credit card and I had not renewed it at the rime. Plus I heard about this a while back but I did not send it to spoof. For the time was about right, My credit card was out of date. I did not open it so I did not lose a thing for it. I am so sorry to hear that you did.
Awood,
No, it doesn’t sound like you’re ranting. Sounds like you’re pissed off. As you should be. The scum who did this to you needs a little “lesson” - normally I would suggest something to do with baseball bats, ropes, honey and Fire Ants. But in civilized scociety, we don’t do things like that…
This is a warning yo all of you out there - do not “re-enter” your personal details if a particular web page asks for it…ALWAYS contact their support area FIRST!!!
Send him down to my part of the USA. From everything I hear and read we aren’t very civilized down this way to start with. [}:)]
Never, EVE*R provide personal information to a site with a link in an email message. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER. It is way too easy to pirate some HTML code and with a few edits make it look like any bank in the world but send you straight to a scam site. If you get a message of that type, use your keyboard, type in the URL that you KNOW is correct and see if things match. This is what Awood23 did and very possibly what saved him from even worse problems.
Awood23 I hope everything works out and it’s nothing worse than a lesson learned.
Guday There,
I think I may have some good news for you.
One of the Busteds who was working a scam on basketball tickets via eBay was arrested in LA a day or so ago. he had boasted that as he was in Australia the police would never get him. He then went to the US and was arrested at the airport!! What a shmuck!! I hope that this makes you all feel a bit better.
Dai