What scam is this?

[ramcycle2010]

I had a buyer from Singapore with a new account, put in a best offer on 2 of my listings, with this message accompanying it:

"Hi my friend. I try to pay through PayPal and same with the Bank account it says that the seller does not accept the payment method for now and sends me this article: REMOVED.

The amount offered is the same as the buy it now price, and once I accepted the offers, they never paid or responded to messages. From feedback they've received, they've done the same thing to other sellers.

The same scenario has just been attempted on two more of my listings, but this time, I just declined the offers.

Apart from being annoying, what the heck is this buyer trying to achieve?

[countessalmirena · Accepted solution]

@ramcycle2010,

Oh dear.

That is not an eBay link. It may look like it to you, but it is a fake site. (It's not ebay.co.uk, but a subdomain - check-sales.ga - .ga is the top-level domain for Gabon.)

Did you click onto the link?

I hope you did not click onto the link.

You would have seen what appeared to be eBay.co.uk, but it is a front, a fake. By clicking onto the link (if you did), you have almost certainly compromised your computer. You should in that case get a good computer tech to assist. Do not conduct any sensitive things on the computer in the meantime, but be prepared for all of your private information and passwords to have been obtained anyway. Once your computer is "clean", change passwords.

There's another post about this same scam on the eBay Canada forum. (If you hover over the link image, you should be able to see where the link directs you.)

I can't unambiguously say what the "buyer" is trying to achieve, but getting sellers to click onto a link that leads one to a destination that LOOKS like eBay screams phishing attempt to me, as well as malicious code.

[ramcycle2010]

Thank you Countess, for your input and the link, very helpful.

I did click on both links, they were different with each attempt, and neither made any sense. I think my Norton protection took care of them.

In terms of what the buyer was trying to achieve, of course you are right, but I was off on a tangent thinking they were trying to rack up a feedback score.

[springyzone]

I totally believe you about that link. It sounds exactly what the point of the whole 'offer' would be, to trick people into clicking on it.

Given that it is a dangerous link, wouldn't you think the mods here would have been quick to delete it? They jump in about comments fast enough but a link that will compromise people's computers is of more urgency, I would have thought.

[*tippy*toes*]

Springy, if you have concerns about a link posted, notify the mods to remove it. It can take them a fair while to get through all new posts for the day, whereas they can act on reported messages as they receive them.

[*tippy*toes*]

---

@ramcycle2010 wrote:

Thank you Countess, for your input and the link, very helpful.

I did click on both links, they were different with each attempt, and neither made any sense. I think my Norton protection took care of them.

In terms of what the buyer was trying to achieve, of course you are right, but I was off on a tangent thinking they were trying to rack up a feedback score.

---

I wouldn't hold my breath on that. Norton and McAfee are 2 of the most popular anti malware programs that people pay money for (why, I don't know because there are far better free ones out there, and those 2 are frightfully expensive). Therefore, the scammers and hijackers have created codes to get through those programs, very successfully. By the time Norton and McAfee catch up with it and create a patch, the damage is done, and the hijackers have created a new code, ready for the next attack. 

I would be getting onto a different device and changing all your passwords, because the hackers have your current ones. Lets just hope you didn't save your bank passwords on your affected device.

[sandypebbles]

Nope, nope nope on counting on Norton only for this type of thing

You need to do as advised above or you could find youself in big trouble 

And don't click links given by scammers again in future 

[gutterpunkz05]

---

@*tippy*toes* wrote:

Springy, if you have concerns about a link posted, notify the mods to remove it. It can take them a fair while to get through all new posts for the day, whereas they can act on reported messages as they receive them.

---

Reported it last night,  very surprised to see it is still there

[ramcycle2010]

---

@*tippy*toes* wrote:

---

@ramcycle2010 wrote:

Thank you Countess, for your input and the link, very helpful.

I did click on both links, they were different with each attempt, and neither made any sense. I think my Norton protection took care of them.

In terms of what the buyer was trying to achieve, of course you are right, but I was off on a tangent thinking they were trying to rack up a feedback score.

---

I wouldn't hold my breath on that. Norton and McAfee are 2 of the most popular anti malware programs that people pay money for (why, I don't know because there are far better free ones out there, and those 2 are frightfully expensive). Therefore, the scammers and hijackers have created codes to get through those programs, very successfully. By the time Norton and McAfee catch up with it and create a patch, the damage is done, and the hijackers have created a new code, ready for the next attack. 

I would be getting onto a different device and changing all your passwords, because the hackers have your current ones. Lets just hope you didn't save your bank passwords on your affected device.

---

Which "far better free ones" would you suggest?

[*tippy*toes*]

I can't fault Avast as a running scanner. It pretty much picks up anything (no virus scanner is going to be able to detect every single virus). I also use Malwarebytes Antimalware, which I set off every month to pick up stuff the virus scanner may have missed. If you want that one to run in the background, you have to pay for it, but the free version does an excellent job when you manually run a scan.

If you know what you are doing and looking for, then RogueKiller is another excellent program. If you don't know what you're looking for, then don't use it, as this program can remove programs that are essential to the running of your computer.