I received a note from an ebay-looking sender, which actually was an aol account. It mentioned going to a 'secure' website' to verig\fy info because there was suspicious activity. Well, there was suspicious activity bcause a good friend or two and my sister have my info and are authorized to bid. I queried several ebay buddies and most agreed it was a scam, and one said to report it to the safe harbor at eBay , and received the reply below. Crazy world, ain't it?
Larry Black Safe Harbor, USA
In a message dated 1/8/03 11:43:02 AM Eastern Standard Time,
SafeHarbor@eBay.com writes:
>
> Hello,
>
> Thank you for writing regarding the email you received that appeared to
> be from eBay.
>
> Recently, our members have been receiving a rash of fraudulent emails
> that appear to be coming from eBay, PayPal, Half.com and even Billpoint.
> These emails may claim that you won a prize, ask you to "log in" to your
> account, "verify" your information, accuse you of having a corrupted or
> frauded account and some even threaten suspension. First let me begin by
> telling you that these emails are not being sent by eBay. Let me assure
> you that eBay will NEVER ask for sensitive financial information,
> including passwords, in an email format. Never be afraid of questioning
> the validity of a suspicious email.
>
> If you have submitted information on any website other than eBay, you
> should immediately take steps to protect your information. First, start
> by changing your eBay, PayPal or Billpoint password and the password
> hint if there is one. Go to the site map page. Under the services
> heading, scroll down to the "My eBay" section. There is a link there to
> change your password and hint. If you find that your account password
> has since been changed without your consent and you are unable to change
> it back by using your password hint, you should contact us immediately
> by replying to this email.
>
> Next, we recommend that you contact the applicable financial companies
> associated with the information you provided. You may also write back
> for a detailed list of agencies to help get you started in recovering
> your information. If you have an eBay seller's account, please be
> assured, if another person was to gain access to your eBay password,
> your credit card and bank information will remain safe on our site.
> Sensitive billing information cannot be accessed using your User ID and
> password. Information previously supplied may be updated but cannot be
> retrieved or viewed by the user.
>
> Our members report a variety of these fraudulent emails daily. When it's
> a first report, we will usually ask you to send us the headers of the
> email. If you so desire, you may send a copy of the email you received
> to us at spam@ebay.com. When we receive a report, we quickly notify our
> Fraud Legal Team for an aggressive investigation. Although we are unable
> to provide you with follow up information regarding the result of our
> investigation, we do take these offenses very seriously. We work hard to
> see that appropriate action is taken against those responsible.
>
> Fortunately, in most cases we are able to contact the hosting web site
> and have these fraudulent sites shut down before most members even have
> a chance to submit information. Most hosting websites do not review the
> pages that are posted to their site, but they will close down fraudulent
> pages when they are reported. Sadly, this is not always the case, but we
> still continue our investigation. Please keep in mind that eBay is not
> associated with any legislative or police authorities and we rely on the
> same agencies you do to pursue these fraudulent entities.
>
> Currently we believe that the majority of these emails are being sent to
> members that have "exposed" their email address on the site or are using
> their email address as their eBay User ID. If your user ID is currently
> your email address you may change it by following the instructions
> below:
>
> * Click on the site map link located at the top of any eBay page
> * Under the 'Services' section heading, click on 'Change my User
> ID' and follow the instructions on that page
>
> (Just so you know, if you change your user ID, your feedback profile
> will not change. It will follow you seamlessly to your new ID. However,
> you will have a set of "shades" next to your new ID to alert members to
> the change. )
>
> If you have ever used your email address as your eBay User ID and you
> have received spam, then there is a good chance your email address has
> already been harvested. Simply by changing your User ID will not remove
> your email address from spam circulations. If this is the case, you may
> need to obtain a new email address altogether.
>
> Next, if you are a seller and have used the automatically inserted
> PayPal logo into your auctions, you have "exposed" your email address.
> This button allows anyone (including spammers) to click on the "Pay Now"
> button of a closed auction. This will take you to a PayPal page that may
> display your email address. Since eBay only recently acquired PayPal, we
> were not aware of this breach. It has been reported and I expect that it
> will be escalated quickly.
>
> Even if you did not enter any information, you may want to check out
> some of these helpful fraud prevention and anti-Spam sites below:
>
> http://spam.abuse.net
>
> http://spamcop.net/
>
> http://mail-abuse.org/
>
> http://www.usdoj.gov/
>
> More information about eBay account security can be found at the
> following links:
>
>
>
> http://ebay.com/
> 8
>
>
>
> http://ebay.com/
>
> If you should receive another email like this in future, please
> re-submit your concern through our web form using the link below:
>
> http://ebay.com/
>
> Again, thank you for your efforts to help keep eBay a safe place to
> trade. Please let me know if you will require additional information or
> assistance.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Cheri
> eBay SafeHarbor
> Investigations Team
> ______________________________
> eBay
> Your Personal Trading Community (tm)
>
> *******************************************
>
> Important: eBay will not ask you for sensitive personal information
> (such as your password, credit card and bank account numbers, Social
> Security numbers, etc.) in an email. Learn more account protection tips
> at:
>
> http://ebay.com/
> _____________________________________________
>
> For our latest announcements, please check:
>
> http://ebay.com/
> _____________________________________________
>
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>
> *******************************************
>
> Original Message:
>
> From: <ABikie@aol.com>
> To: eBay Safe Harbor <SafeHarbor@eBay.com>
> Subject: Fwd: 'eBay Verification'
>
> In a message dated 1/6/03 1:17:45 PM Eastern Standard Time, A Bikie
> writes:
>
> >
> >>>
> >>
> >>Dear eBay Member,
> >>
> >> We've been having difficulty with your eBay Service due to recent
> >>excessive suspicious activity. We understand that your account has
> been
> >>hacked recently, and we are doing everything we can to prevent
> further
> >>mistakes such as this to happen.
> >>
> >> In order to further verify the authenticity of this account, we must
> have
> >>you verify the information listed on the secure >>