A message from a fellow eBayer about phishing emails.
“These damn phishing scammers have become *extremely* good
in the last few years. They can produce emails that look
very authentic and are quite compelling. Their main goal
is to get you to click on a link in the email, supposedly
to log in to your account, but really it’s a link to the
scammer’s site.
Their site looks like the real thing, but all it does is
collect your login information. Then the scammers can use
that however they like (it usually involves stealing your
money).
I fell for this recently myself. The other day I
(thought) I received an email from eBay. It included a
message from an eBay user, in the standard format that
eBay uses for their member messaging system.
Even the content of the (supposed) user’s message was
believable: it was a vague question asking about their
order and why they hadn’t heard from me. This is the kind
of thing I act on ASAP. So, I clicked on the “log in”
link in the email and tried logging into (supposedly)
eBay.
After successive failures and making sure I was using the
right login info, I realized I had been taken for a ride.
I frantically brought up a new browser window and logged
into the REAL eBay and quickly changed my password.
*** THE BOTTOM LINE ***
Never, ever use a link in an email to log in to ANY
online account. Instead, bring up a brand new browser
window and type in the website by hand, and then log in.
“
I’ve seen so many of these emails in the past… I’ve even been tempted to almost login… but at the last second… I see something that isn’t right, mostly with the URL.
I would estimate 1/5 eBayers have had their account’s stolen. Be careful out there, there are more scammers out there then you think.
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