ID Theft

[captainxkells]

Hi 

I recently got a warning email from Ebay saying that someone may have contacted me who is a spoof (fake). That being said someone did contact me and requested to complete the transaction through Paypal, however it was out side Ebay. He told me to contact him on a personal email outside of Ebay as well. This is most of the email.

"Hi there,
Thanks very much for the mail and i really appreciate all from you regarding the payment for the item,  i want you to know that am buying this for my Friend abroad and will be paying you AU $1,600.00 for the item and the postage through AU post and willing to make the payment through PayPal and would like you to get back to me with your full name and your pay pal email Id for an instant payment so that you as well get the item posted out to him over there."

I did contact him through my personal email. Does this look like a fake person trying to gain access to my Ebay or even my paypal? Also if he is a fake what can he do with my email address? should i be worried? 

Also i tried to look at his Ebay page but i get a connection timed out "This webpage is not avalible"

Thanks Max 

[digupatin · Accepted solution]

Definately a scam. The 'friend abroad' is the first clue.

Too late to tell you not to reply, contact them, or click on any links.

You can report it to eBay if you like, a transaction outside eBay is a no no.

Just delete their email, add them to your blocked list, and forget about it.

[cathyjoyjoy]

Also these people may also be seeking your email to attempt scamming through other social media sites.  For example on Facebook, some people have their email, mobile phone AND even their friends list as viewable by the public .......... leaving them open to all sorts of issues.

If eBay personally contacted me to warn me of something and it is an authentic eBay message, I would suggest eBay are telling you the truth.

[*tippy*toes*]

Just be careful about opening any messages from eBay and PayPal as these kinds of people can make those emails look genuine. If you receive an email from either, DO NOT click on any links. You can check whether an eBay message is genuine by checking in your My Messages. Scam emails don't go there. If you are unsure if a link in a PayPal email is real or not, hold your pointer over it and check down the bottom of the screen to see where the link will be directing you to. If it's not saying PayPal, don't click on it. Don't click on it regardless. Log directly into PayPal to see any changes that may be mentioned in an email.

[go-tazz]

This explains the scam in full.

http://www.ebay.com.au/gds/nigeria-is-a-scam/10000000016952077/g.html

[*tippy*toes*]

I just got a scam email, but it wasn't eBay related (I don't think anyway!). What surprised me was, the attachment is a .doc file, instead of the usual .exe files. No doubt the malicious code is embedded in the .doc file. I wonder how many other people got this and went on to open the attachment? It was almost tempting to turn off my internet connection and open it, just to see what was in there, but not knowing what virus it may be carrying, I didn't want to risk not being able to remove it. It would have been interesting to know why I was receiving $36K!

[go-tazz]

It's something that could be sent by a scammer,(once they've harvested your name and Email address)

That's what makes scam listings more dangerous than they seem as one of their main tactics is to get the

genuine address and Email address so they can send a realistic looking phishing Email,(someone is more likely

to click on an attachment if they see their real name in the message).

Viewing the message source without opening the .doc file. will generally give you enough clues as to where

it was generated from,(the scammer is after gullible people and they believe that they wont check the

message source so they don't bother trying to make things look too genuine on the "inside").

They just want them to open the file,

[*tippy*toes*]

---

@go-tazz wrote:

It's something that could be sent by a scammer,(once they've harvested your name and Email address)

That's what makes scam listings more dangerous than they seem as one of their main tactics is to get the

genuine address and Email address so they can send a realistic looking phishing Email,(someone is more likely

to click on an attachment if they see their real name in the message).

Viewing the message source without opening the .doc file. will generally give you enough clues as to where

it was generated from,(the scammer is after gullible people and they believe that they wont check the

message source so they don't bother trying to make things look too genuine on the "inside").

They just want them to open the file,

---

I did check the message source (I always do with suspect emails.....or even spam that gets through the filters so I can block domains) and it originated from a different domain to the email address. As usual, the return address would be fake, but as you said, seeing inside the message gives the true story.

There are 2 different IP addresses in the message source, one says Murcia, Spain, the other in South Korea. They could be using a VPN. Although a friend of mine has a VPN running 24/7 and the IP address in emails sent from him show his real IP address (I checked some of his emails this afternoon and asked him what his real IP address was and what his current VPN IP address was and it only showed his real one)