E-bay - A Target For Identity Thieves
Posted on February 17, 2008
E-Bay is a popular website online that is used by millions of people around the world to sell and purchase new and used items. It is like a giant garage sale that you can access from anywhere in the world. However it seems that the bane of popular websites is that the more popular they become, the higher the likelihood scam artists are to attempt to defraud people at the website.
The scam plaguing E-Bay is quite similar to the one that is also plaguing PayPal, which oddly enough are both owned by E-Bay. The scam for both E-Bay and PayPal are done via email. The email that you receive will ask you to update your account information for some reason or another, usually listed as your account being suspected of fraud or that your account has been suspended.
The email will contain a link for you to click, either a written out link or a radio button – don’t click it if you receive one, rather, right click and you will see that the URL is phony. These emails look incredibly real and sound realistic enough. There are a few ways that you can spot an E-Bay scam by email, read every email you receive from E-Bay thoroughly, even ‘bid won’ emails – you can never tell when someone is trying to defraud you.
Be wary of emails sent to an email address that is not listed with your E-Bay account. Just because you have more than one email address doesn’t mean it’s legitimate, on the contrary, it is probably a scam.
Watch
E-Bay will not ask you for your personal information in an email, nor will they ask you to update it via email. Any email from E-Bay or PayPal that requests your information such as your User Id, bank account number, password or any other financial information is likely a scam. If E-Bay (or PayPal) needs you to update your information, they will have a notice on your account page when you sign in or will telephone you asking for the information and for you to login to your account online. However, you should not have to give your account information over the phone either.
Watch for overly urgent subject lines in the email. Words such as Urgent, or stars, or a blatant request to update your account is a high indicator the email is a scam.
Another thing to watch is for generic greetings such as “Dear E-Bay member”. E-Bay knows your name that is associated with your email address and your account and the company does not send out generic or mass emails.
A threat in the email that your E-Bay account will be suspended if you don’t act immediately is a sure sign that the email is a fake and you are being scammed.
Bad grammar and misspelled words are also a key that the email is not legitimate.
If you think the email is legitimate, do not click on the link. Close your browsers and email, run a spyware check on your computer and then open a fresh browser and go to your E-Bay account. You can email E-Bay from the main site as well asking if they requested the information. Chances are, they did not, but don’t be afraid to ask. Doing so could save you and your identity from being stolen.
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Faithe Thomas is concerned about identity theft and online fraud. She designed a website to help victims and pre-victims: http://www.identity-fraud.info
Tags: ebay, identity fraud, identity theft, scam
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