I shut down an eBay scam!

MDLarson

MDLarson

Registered
Heh...

I got an email from "eBay" today at 10:45 AM to my special ebay email account. I only use this email address for eBay and PayPal, so I kind of suspect the scammer was somebody I have done business with in the recent past. In the email, they said "We are unable to verify or authenticate your credit/debit card information on file with us."

Anyway, I usually pride myself in identifying a scam email, but for some reason I just clicked on the link thinking "Woah, I better make sure my info is up to date!" I pulled out my credit card, and started typing in my ebay user name, password... then I notice that the domain isn't ebay.com... it's some weird subdomain of fast-host.com! Er... that's not right!

So, I visited fast-host.com to see what they're all about - they seemed legit, so I forwarded them the scam email I had just received. To my surprise, they replied back thanking me for informing them and that the website has been disabled!

Crazy... I didn't think anything would happen, but I'm glad to have done what I should, and hopefully they get caught.

Any advice on what to do next? If it really is somebody I've done business with in the past, should I notify eBay with a list of user names?
 
Well, you probably should let eBay know of this phishing scam.

It might not be someone you've done business with directly - one of them might have a computer virus that has scooped up their email address book, for use by someone else. Still, it couldn't hurt to let them know the background of that address, especially if the number of people who has it is small
 
MDLarson said:
Heh...

I got an email from "eBay" today at 10:45 AM to my special ebay email account. I only use this email address for eBay and PayPal, so I kind of suspect the scammer was somebody I have done business with in the recent past. In the email, they said "We are unable to verify or authenticate your credit/debit card information on file with us."

Anyway, I usually pride myself in identifying a scam email, but for some reason I just clicked on the link thinking "Woah, I better make sure my info is up to date!" I pulled out my credit card, and started typing in my ebay user name, password... then I notice that the domain isn't ebay.com... it's some weird subdomain of fast-host.com! Er... that's not right!

So, I visited fast-host.com to see what they're all about - they seemed legit, so I forwarded them the scam email I had just received. To my surprise, they replied back thanking me for informing them and that the website has been disabled!

Crazy... I didn't think anything would happen, but I'm glad to have done what I should, and hopefully they get caught.

Any advice on what to do next? If it really is somebody I've done business with in the past, should I notify eBay with a list of user names?
Click to expand...

Yep. Report it all to E-Bay, Hopefully they will find out who the culprit is and Ban them. I get regular e-mails telling me my account is in dispute, please send my up to date info by following a link. Failure to do so could result in my account being suspended blah blah blah....All fakes. And all reported back to E-Bay.
 
I hope eBay bans them and prosecutes them!

I just notified them. The thing that scares me is that I, a "tech-savvy" and "skeptical" person almost fell for it. <shudder> :)
 
yeah the only problem is this scammer is operating off a hacked server and has the reply bounced off 6 different countries and retrives the text files from a public IP so there's no way in hell you'll ever bust the guy.

And that's if you're lucky, because most likely, this guy is operating somewhere out of southeast asia. So even if it were posible to locate him(and it's not) you'd never be able to prosecute him, since they don't have cyber police, or extradition policies in Laous.
 
I know what you can do next. Go to Philadelphia, find a guy named Leo, and GET ME MY MONEY BACK!!!! :mad:
 
Ah yes, I've recruited you before, have I not? ;)

How many of you have read the plight of the P-P-P-Powerbook? Makes Matt's actions seem almost mundane... ;) (JK's, getting any scammer is a good thing :D)
 
Arden. I read the whole PPPowerbook thang. Nicely done! And that wacko sent you a virus…what an idiot! That virus was made for a PC… :)
 
Wow, I read the whole thing... that is AWESOME. Wouldn't it be great if that's the treatment that scammers got all the time... Wow, great story.

Arden, it wasn't YOU who was trying to sell that Pbook, was it? Wow... great story! :) LASER!!
 
No, I'm not that creatively sadistic. This would surely have been the forum referred to had it been me.
 
The scammer might well not be operating in SE Asia, bouncing through six proxy servers in five countries, etc. etc. etc.

Probably 95% of criminals are dumb (hell, you know what they say about 95% of anything), and computer criminals are not much different...
 
If you were using Windows and IE, then the address would of probably looked like it was ebay as you can exploit IE like that :confused:

:D
 
I thought I would add to this thread rather than start a new one (got to keep the site admins happy!). I notice I get these kind of emails for sites/companies I often deal with soon after I deal with them - eBay, PayPal and most recently my bank (got a phish pretending to be my bank just today and I was on my account site yesterday). My question is this - can cookies be used to gather this type of information? Without understanding the technical details can these people have a cookie on my browser that somehow informs them of where I visit? How about my email address - does my browser fail to secure my email address? If so, what can I do about it? I mean cookies are a way of life and managing them every day can be a pain.
 
I use Firefox and clear the cache every week so I don't have to worry about cookies at all.

Also, I never pay attention to any emails that come through from ANY company because they are usually false. I always go to the company's website and log into my account to see any activity.
 
I honestly believe e-bay doesn't care when it comes to fraud.

Now granted, my only experience was a "low" amount - under $25. But beware! If you buy anything from someone on e-bay for under 25, ebay does not care if they send the item or not.

I bought a DVD for 25. Guy got my money. I got nothing.
I found that he would list 300 items at a time.

When I found a duplicate auction, I bidded on it, got the same response, and sent it to e-bay.

The auction was never shut down.
 
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