topic Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action. in Selling

Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

carsalesbay — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 06:44:34 GMT

We are a high turnover business and are currently being targeted by a sophisticated scam involving sending 2nd change offers to bidders on our items. I believe the hack has taken place on the eBay site itself to obtain the bidding information, and the full name and email address of the users that did in fact bid on the item, but not win it.

Through what I believe is a vulnerability in the security of eBay, the hackers have access to eBay's customer database and thus have access to personal information. There are no records of these 2nd chance offers being sent by our account itself. It is a sophisticated hack, taking advantage of us as the high value trader, and using eBay's records of bidding information, and user information. A complete phishing email can be constructed looking exactly as it would if sent from eBay, and being sent to the fraudulently obtained email address of 2nd 3rd and perhaps 4th highest bidders of the item. The hack takes two forms known to me. One uses an email address as a means to complete the fraudulent sale. The other reported to me only uses a PayPal account designed to received funds with a 'buy it now' link on the fraudulent 2nd chance offer. We have had numerous reports from over 10 individuals of this fraud who were previous bidders on our items over the past 4 weeks. There would undoubtedly be many many more instances of the scam taking place, but being unreported.

I believe the hack requires an urgent bulletin posted on eBay, and/or a general email to users advising to extremely cautious of emails pertaining to 2nd chance offers. This hack should immediately be escalated to a senior security staff member at eBay, and not treated with the templated response as per eBay's usual reply.

We have had reports from customers who have sent money, and presumably lost money due to this fraud. Frustratingly, after reporting this fraudulent activity, eBay has not taken any serious steps to investigate it. I have sent examples of the emails sent (as received from customers), and attempted to speak to higher levels of management. As stated, I believe the hack is taking place on the eBay site itself, therefore, if eBay don't have a solution, or have not been able to ascertain how this is occurring, it is obviously very embarrassing for eBay. This should not be reason enough to take urgent steps to advise customers to beware of this known problem.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

carsalesbay — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 06:50:18 GMT

To add to this - The hack isn't on our account. Our account isn't sending any emails, and has not been compromised. I've changed passwords, and run through security checks with eBay customer service. At their end, they've IP limited the account to just us.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

phorum_junkie* — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 06:56:01 GMT

I have had dozens of fake second chance offers, I have not blamed ebay for any of them, the hackers invariably get the information from people using links in phishing emails and there is absolutely nothing ebay can do to prevent people being duped into clicking links in emails and passing on their sign in information.

I would like to bet all my profits for the year that it has nothing to do with the ebay site having been hacked.

If people are gullible enough to fall for fake emails then there is not much ebay or anyone else can do to help them. Ebay clearly explain that a second chance offer will be displayed in a member's ebay page so if all they have is an email and they then go on to pay somebody money without using the protection of ebay then please pass me their details, I have a very nice bridge to sell, free opera house included!

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

donnashuggy — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:59:13 GMT

These scams are fairly common, do you also sell the vehicles on carsales or similar?

It really isn't eBay allowing this to happen, it is buyers not recognizing legit eBay messages and more than likely the offer is too good to be true but they part with their money.

I have seen these scams and the messages and yes they do look legit if you are inexperienced, it is extremely unfortunate that your bidders have fallen for this. It isn't your fault and it is not eBay's either.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

boggo58 — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:22:17 GMT

Forget it, stop wasting your breath Ebay wont and will not do anything, ph, send messages wont work ,they know whats going on but refuse to do anything about it

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

coast_golf — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:33:22 GMT

Perhaps I'm missing something here but how are the scammers identifying the underbidders? Unless I'm mistaken they must have access to the OP's account in some capacity but the 2nd chance offers don't appear to be originating from that account. I'm confused, although that's fairly common 😄

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

donnashuggy — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:36:33 GMT

It is very easy to view a bidders history, and when it is worth a lot of money even if you only uncover one bidder of a high priced item in a day it can be a good earner......that is one way.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

mickoz — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:24:46 GMT

I also received one of these scam today. Easy to spot if you check sender email and links, but people are not on their guard like me...

I am not surprised somebody can "find" my username and thing I buy even if eBay scramble the ID (I preferred eBay when it was more open for multiple reasons). I was surprised though that the scammer found my real name and email on top of that (I can think of way someone can find it, but by reading a couple of similar case, there is a pattern and there is a big chance they found an easy way to get that info via eBay). And realistically I changed email not long ago, and it is not publicly available, therefore chance are slim.

I even saw fake reply (not with me) including the buyer's address... it makes me wonder just like carsalesbay that the people doing this have found a way to get that information (e.g., through an insecure web service). I do not think seller can see member's real contact without requesting them when they proceed the normal way with eBay.

I agree that most scam, they cannot do much, but for a couple of reason these ones sound more alarming to me.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

go-tazz — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:45:30 GMT

I believe the hack has taken place on the eBay site itself to obtain the bidding information, and the full name and email address of the users that did in fact bid on the item, but not win it.

Which means your account was hijacked as only you can see the bidders ID's.

Someone has clicked a link via a phishing Email and given them your passwords,(which would now stop as you've changed them).

It was your account that was compromised as only your customers where affected.

If they had hacked eBay there would have being hundreds if not thousands of second chance offers sent all over the place.

They only need the information from you and then they'll set up their own fake site/listings.

The hack isn't on our account. Our account isn't sending any emails, and has not been compromised. I've changed passwords, and run through security checks with eBay customer service.

Your account was compromised as that's how they got the information to send the second chance offers.

They wouldn't send the second chance offers via your site as that achieves nothing for them.

Changing passwords should fix the problem provided no one else clicks on a link in a phishing Email,:-D

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

go-tazz — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:52:50 GMT

Old thread resurrected,:-(

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii245/phoenix72_2008/brickwall.gif

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

carsalesbay — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:10:53 GMT

Hi Tazz - you're half right. you say

"Your account was compromised as that's how they got the information to send the second chance offers."

It's actually the bidders accounts have been compromised via phishing scam. The scammer gets the password, gets into the bidder's account, checks bidding history, confirms their email address, and sends through the 2nd chance email based on items from their bidding history. Our account wasn't hacked, passwords are regularly changed, and the 2nd chances flood in daily to our customers. It seems a lot of people will freely log into their account at a bogus URL when asked to do so via random email.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

go-tazz — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:46:03 GMT

The scanmmer can't get the bidder information as anyone checking your possible second chance bidders would show as r***T or H***L or any such combination and are therefore hidden,(eBay only uses 2 letters or numbers from their ID and puts the *** in between).

Any scammer can not see their full id,only you can or anyone else that is able to log into your account.

So there is no way that the scammer would be sending second chance offers to a buyer for a listing that they know nothing about.

It sounds more like scammers are stealing your listings and others that have bid on your items are either bidding on them or complaining why they didn't get a second chance offer.

If they haven't had a second chance offer from you then the scammer can't send them one as they can't get that information from a listing,X-(

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

mickoz — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:02:46 GMT

I will repeat, I doubt my account was compromised (not via phishing as I am always careful, monitor URL when I click a link, etc.); and if it is the seller's account, he should only be able to get my ID from the bidding list, not my real name and email without requesting it or get in contact with me.

There are multiple case like this and they seem to all be for items ending in thousand of dollars. And they seem to all be in recent weeks (March/April). There are older scam, but not with real name + email, etc.

One of the best written example is there: http://bidamount.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-new-ebay-second-chance-offer-scam.html

The guy says "The did tell me the information did not come from my own account after doing some checking on login data." -- he went as far as verifying login information with eBay.

Plus the email used is similar to the one used for me (jr engineer was in both)

Only way he could have got that guy's info via phishing, it would be to ask these personal info, but someone will find it suspect that a phish scam ask for the name, etc. (and I sure have not give back my name to eBay). I am still wondering if the people doing that have not found a way to get that information (e.g. via an unprotected web service). Unless we have a kind of virus trojan that monitor everything on our side, etc. But I doubt. We cannot conclude it is phishing that easily.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

suitcase_of_memories — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:23:51 GMT

go-tazz.....'The scanmmer can't get the bidder information as anyone checking your possible second chance bidders would show as r***T or H***L or any such combination and are therefore hidden,(eBay only uses 2 letters or numbers from their ID and puts the *** in between'...

correct, until the seller leaves feedback for the buyer, then all bidder information is viewable from what I have seen.

Also I recently had to pay a techy to fix my computer as I had malware take over the whole darn thing. He explained to me 'It isn't the site you are on per se...it is the ADVERTISERS that site sells advertising space to that places the malware on your computer, so the same must apply for hackers, all they have to do is ADVERTISE on ebay to work their way through the systems of the HOST SITE, in this instance ebay.

There are that many external advertisers on ebay now you would be hard pressed to know who was legit & who was paying simply to access ebay's database.

Ebay won't accept liablility, it leaves them open to having to pay compensation, can't have the CEO losing his lunch money can we !!

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

go-tazz — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:58:37 GMT

It might certainly be possible but if that was the case we would have heard about a lot more fake second chance offers.

currently being targeted by a sophisticated scam involving sending 2nd change offers to bidders on our items.

These offers are only linked to this seller so that is the common ground,(the other one like in the link above are only targeting that sellers buyers so it the same scenario).

They would have possibly done the same as this seller:not via phishing as I am always careful, monitor URL when I click a link, etc.

The perfect opportunity for the scammer to download a Keylogger/Trojan that will access your information without you knowing anything about it,(they will keep relaying any information from the time they where downloaded).

You need to run all your Virus and Malware programs to see what you might have downloaded.

That's why eBay can't explain it because it has nothing to with them as the information is coming from the sellers PC.

Keyloggers are commonly sent as email attachments and via links in instant messages that point to the infected file.

Keyloggers may record all keystrokes, or they may be sophisticated enough to monitor for specific activity - like opening a web browser pointing to your online banking site or other secure sites.

When the desired behavior is observed, the keylogger goes into record mode, capturing your login username and password.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

woodruff00 — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:56:00 GMT

eBay should be held responsible for protecting user's confidential information. If the fraud is initiated by hacking into eBay and obtaining buyer's direct contact information which is ultimately used to target specific eBay users, eBay should be held accountable.

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

xr8tracey — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:06:33 GMT

ebay has lost the plot its just not relaible liek it used to be , and they will loose sellers tenfold , ebay just dug their own grave 😞

Re: Major 2nd Chance Offer Fraud - Reported to eBay with absolutely no action.

catsnknots — Wed, 08 May 2013 05:59:08 GMT

Also I recently had to pay a techy to fix my computer as I had malware take over the whole darn thing. He explained to me 'It isn't the site you are on per se...it is the ADVERTISERS that site sells advertising space to that places the malware on your computer, so the same must apply for hackers, all they have to do is ADVERTISE on ebay to work their way through the systems of the HOST SITE, in this instance ebay.

There are that many external advertisers on ebay now you would be hard pressed to know who was legit & who was paying simply to access ebay's database.

Ebay won't accept liablility, it leaves them open to having to pay compensation, can't have the CEO losing his lunch money can we !!

YES.. that is so true..

I had Adblock Plus on my Chrome browser.. I hardly see any advertisements... I also use Bullguard that now puts a little green tick beside safe sites when I do google searches...