I had my ebay account suspended because somehow, some little bugger listed a ton of camera gear under my name. Fortunately, ebay let me know what was up, and everything has been corrected. If you start to recieve a lot of official looking ebay emails, don't click on any links. They think that's how my account was compromised. The ebay people were very helpful.

I had this happen to me once about 2 years...I have learned since then.

I get at least 2-3 spoof emails a week, I can't believe people are like that

Money is a strong motivation factor.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was involved with something like that when I was a bit younger. It's all good until the lawyers or feds catch up with ya. Luckily, mine was the former.

Spamming/scamming, the "drug dealing" for bored, high school computer geeks.

I'm just glad I'm not in it anymore, the fines are a lot bigger and you can actually get jail time now.

rpoz-29: Yep, those e-mails look good, but always check the URL on them, unless it starts with "http://www.ebay.com" in your address bar, it's a phoney. This goes for AOL, bank, stock, paypal, or anything else that has a password and costs money.

The people at ebay said as much. I was really impressed at how well they handled the problem.

I've been getting spoof mails from PayPal (among other sites). when I hit reply, the address doesn't go to service@paypal, and when scrolled my mouse over the link, it goes to some dudes website. Lastly,I receive these spoofs to my e-mail acct that PayPal doesn't know.

Some, as official looking as it gets, would still lack proper english, even misspelled words.

The one claiming from PayPal keeps telling me my account would freeze if I don't check my account. The stupidest one is (one claiming from Citibank), "We're doing maintenance and lost your infos, please click the link and refill your info". Really, what else do you want, keys to my house and car?

Aria

Keep in mind, that spammers and other ne'er-do-wells can tell if you've even opened their emails, much less reply.

They're called web bugs, pretty much small (sometimes 1 pixel) images with a long, custom address for each email. When you open the email, you request the pic from their server, and they can match the pic you asked for with the email they sent, and they now know it's a good email address.

My advice, I don't even open suspicious emails. right to the deletion bin. If something from ebay or paypal ends up in my inbox, I'll usually open up another window and go right to their site, figuring they'll tell me what they wanted me to know with a notice when I log in.

Good to know, thanks for sharing that.

Aria

Jeff,

Good advice, I have learned that the hard way.

The ebay guy I spoke with also said to change your ebay password from time to time, and NEVER use a word that could be found in the dictionary.

I got one of those spam notes last night from LaSalle Bank claiming their system saw that I had attempted to log into my account and the account was locked for security purposes. Would I click on this link and resubmit my password to get my account unlocked.

I've never even heard of LaSalle Bank ... :leaving:

As long as you can open your ebay account, you're okay. Don't respond to LaSalle bank, but do forward the message to "spam@ebay.com". They will respond.

Another scam, someone listed a low mileage 2002 Firehawk with a buy it now price of $12,000. The guys on the Firehawk board made quick work of it. Someone thought it looked familiar. Turns out all the pictures were taken from someone else's listing on Autotrader. The mileage didn't match up with the car's service history and the guy ducked the question of his address when people asked to see it.

So if it's too good to be true.... Definitely don't click the "Buy it Now" option, and do your homework!!! (Ebay did cancel the auction in the end)

I recently received the same from Pay-Pal... when I hit the link it showed an IP address, example: 98.107.77.102/paypal.com/services.....