posted on September 7, 2004 12:09:27 AM new
Today I bid on several items from a Platinum Seller and won two items. Not under usmarines so don't bother looking.
But I just received a request from payment and it appears NOT to be from the seller! I knew this because I had already paid him directly using PayPal, using a different email address provided by eBay email, PayPal indicated the email address to be from a Business member with thousands of transactions. The email address "from" is different from the one they use both on eBay and PayPal! That right there made me suspicious.
The email address used on both eBay and PayPal is [email protected] while the email address of the potential spoof email is: [email protected]. The language and spelling is so bad, that I suspected it to be a spoof PAYMENT REQUEST. I can believe that a Platinum Seller email would be that bad.
Here is the email:
Hello xxxxxxx
Congratulations! You are the winning bidder on eBay item #xxxxxxxxxx, "18XX-CC MORGAN SILVER DOLLAR." I look forward to promptly shipping your item. Please help me quickly process your order by clicking on the link at the bottom of this e-mail. The link will take you to a secure checkout form, which allows you to quickly enter your shipping and payment information.
Please do not attempt to complete your purchase using any other method, as it WILL delay shipment of your item. *If paying with credit card direct you will need to email all info. * YOU ARE RESPONCIBLE FOR CHOSING INSURANCE, WE WILL NOT BE RESPONCIBLE FOR ANY UN INSURED PACKAGES. If you have any questions, please reply to this email.
We appreciate your business www.xxxxxxjewelry.com Thank you,Buddy xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx P.O Box xxxxxx Lake Worth,Fl.xxxxx-xxxxx
If the link below doesn't appear to be clickable, please copy and paste the entire URL into the address box of your browser window.
If a spoofer has succeeded on spoofing Payment Requests, we, eBay and PayPal are in deep trouble. The system would have lost its integrity and people would be afraid to use eBay and PayPal under any circumstances.
The only challenge for the spoofers is to obtain the email address of the bidder, the rest of the information is readily available on eBay. It looks like someone has found a way to obtain the email address of the bidders.
All the spoofers need to do is look for auctions closing where the prices are in the hundreds or thousands and send spoof payment requests to these unsuspecting bidders, if they are quick enough, they may be able to intercept many of these payments.
Has anyone else had received anything like this before?
posted on September 7, 2004 04:33:29 AM new
Wow,
That is very interesting. I may have to update my auctions to state that their winning notice will come from my e-mail address only.
posted on September 7, 2004 07:24:02 AM new
well that just bites!
combine THIS spoof/fraud with the second chance spoof/fraud that I got and this does indicate the demise of Ebay and PayPal as they said in my thread.
Now I'll have to go over and turn off sending the winning bidder a PP pay me letter and write up a new TOS instead. I'll tell people to sign in and pay through PP's auction I've won ONLY.
Time to reduce your inventory boys and girls.
I have a friend of mine that's sold a couple of books through half.com and she's overwhelmed with the fake PP and fake Ebay account information emails. She thought they were real but had enough sense to ask me first.
posted on September 7, 2004 08:31:03 AM new
That is the e-mail sent out by the Vendio checkout.
Hello XXXXXX,
Congratulations! You are the winning bidder on eBay item #**********, "XXXXXXXXXXXXX".
I look forward to promptly shipping your item. Please help me quickly process your order by clicking on the link at the
bottom of this email. The link will take you to my secure Vendio Checkout form, which allows you to quickly enter your shipping and payment information.
Please do not attempt to complete your purchase using any other method, as
it may delay shipment of your item. If you have already completed checkout using the Vendio Checkout button in my item listing,
please disregard this notice. If you have any questions, please reply to this email.
We appreciate your business!
Thank you,
Seller
If the link below doesn't appear to be clickable, please copy and paste the
entire URL into the address box of your browser window.
posted on September 8, 2004 07:25:18 PM new
This evening I received yet another email from seller using the [email protected] email address, claiming they has not received my payment and claiming that they don't know who is [email protected].
The seller requests that I make payment to another account, not the email account on the email From: address. The new account that seller wants me to send payment is [email protected].
I don't plan to make any further payments. Fortunately as always, I had paid with a Credit Card as an additional protection.
After receiving seller's email requesting payment again! I called PayPal and spend over one hour with two PayPal technical support people and finally I request to speak to their supervisor.
I related the problem to the supervisor and under cross scrutiny, he admits that they have been having trouble with Spoof Payment Requests. I don't know, who received my payment but it was send to the email address supplied by eBay. PayPal confirmed the email address to be from a Business member with thousands of transactions.
It seems that the system (eBay/PayPal) has lost its integrity and people should be afraid to use eBay and PayPal under any circumstances. I will refrain from making further purchases on eBay and will stop using PayPal to make payments on these purchase.
Knowing that things were very slow for everyone on eBay during the past month, I made several purchases on eBay to help my fellow seller. I purchased several thousands of dollars (a new Dell Laptop, a new 5 Meg Digital Camera and many more items). My sales too, were reduced to less than half during the past month. Sure, I sold more than enough to maintain my status as a Power Seller.
I had 79 items I was watching and I was very serious about purchasing them. I deleted all my Items I was watching. Until eBay/PayPal are able to deal with this Spoof Payment Requests problem, I for one, will not be making any further purchases from eBay.
Be very cautious with the Request for payment you receive, pay by Credit Card and under no circumstances make payment to an account other than that supplied by eBay, if you are still brave enough to make eBay purchases!
If eBay/PayPal is unable to stop this problem and regain the confidence of the buyers, we (sellers), eBay and PayPal are in deep trouble!
For our own self interest as Sellers, I think we should all try to bring this problem to the attention of the news media, specially the Wall Street Journal, financial analysts and your local newspapers, please feel free to refer to this posting and glassgrl's posting. Hopefully, the problem will be successfully resolved and eBay/PayPal will continue as a viable venue.
posted on September 8, 2004 07:57:50 PM new
I once had a newbie 0 feedback buyer that was nervous about handling a transaction via email. He pulled my contact info and called me on the phone. Asked all kinds of questions, which I answered. By the end of the conversation, he was confident enough that I was legit, he agreed to send the money, which he promptly did. I laughed at the time at his paranoia, but I never forgot it. If I were to bid on and win a high dollar item, I would follow his example. Just food for thought if you have any bad vibes about an email you receive asking for payment. In the instance you cite, I would call the seller and verify everything and let him know what's going on.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on September 8, 2004 08:21:48 PM new
You are not being very clear. Are you saying that you sent the payment to the e-mail address that was listed with eBay? The seller didn't get it and wants you to send it to a second e-mail address? And you got a notification from a third e-mail address that the seller has never heard of?
You said: The new account that seller wants me to send payment is [email protected].
Isn't that the address you said the notification was from?
You also said: This evening I received yet another email from seller using the [email protected] email address, claiming they has not received my payment and claiming that they don't know who is [email protected].
He sent you an e-mail from an address and doesn't know who that address is?
Like I said before this is the e-mail that sellers who use the Vendio checkout and their automatic winning bidder notifications. Why don't you look at the auction and see if they use Vendio?
Then on Vendio go to: My Account: Post Sale Management Preferences. About half way down the page you will see: Winning Bidder Notification (WBN) Email. This is the e-mail that you got.
It sounds like the seller has a new e-mail adress and has not changed it on e-Bay.
Be kind. Everyone is fighting their own secret battles.
...Author Unknown
