Commentary from the staff of Auctiva.com
Speak of the Devil… I Mean ‘Phisher’
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A few weeks back, I commented on a thread on our forums about how to spot “phishing” or “spoof” e-mails claiming to be from eBay, PayPal, Auctiva, etc.
Then over the weekend, I received a very legitimate-looking e-mail, claiming to be a message from another eBay member. The return address was member@ebay.com—which is the e-mail address you’ll see on legitimate “this member has a question for you” e-mails—and it looked exactly like the typical messages I’m so used to seeing, but right off the bat, I knew this wasn’t a legitimate message.
The title of the item in the subject line was of something I had never, ever sold. The second red flag was the fact that the e-mail was sent to “Rebecca Miller.”
I use an abbreviation of my name on eBay and PayPal, so every legitimate e-mail I receive from these two organizations is addressed to that name, not “Rebecca Miller.” Somehow these phishers knew my full name, and thought they were so smart to use it in the greeting. Sorry to burst your bubble!
Just to be doubly sure the e-mail was indeed a fake, I opened a new browser window and went to my eBay account to make sure it hadn’t been hijacked. It hadn’t been, thank goodness. I also checked the messages section and guess what? No new messages.
I forwarded the e-mail to spoof@ebay.com to do my part to stop such e-mails by reporting this one. Sorry phishers, but you need not waste your time on me. And you don’t want them wasting their time on you, either, so check out this Auctiva EDU article to read some more tips on spotting phishing e-mails. You don’t want to get ‘phished in’ after all.
About the author
Rebecca Miller is Auctiva.com's product manager. As an eBay seller of more than 10 years, Rebecca is well tuned into the needs of online sellers, and serves as an internal advocate for merchants. She continuously monitors Auctiva's Community Forums, answering customer's questions and taking their feedback to developers for future enhancements. Rebecca continues to sell on eBay, and is currently a PowerSeller and a Top-rated Seller.
Thank you; that was refreshing
I also report to the IRS. They have a phishing section their e-mail: Phishing@irs.gov
Then I check to see what the senders address is and report to their browser or whatever.
There is no point in reporting those e-mails, eBay can’t stop someone from sending them. You’re better of just hitting the delete button and moving on to the next on. I get about three of these each week.