Online Fraud
In relation to my previous post, I’d like to talk a little about online fraud. So, I listed my Gateway Convertible on eBay only to find out that the one who used “Buy It Now” was a scammer. He tried rushing me through the process and I just didn’t feel comfortable selling to this guy. First of all, his feedback rating was 0 - but I do understand that there are new people to eBay who can be trustworthy. Well, he ended up sending me a (an obvious) fake PayPal notification of payment. There were some English grammar mistakes that just seemed odd, and the note said that the funds were being held until I provided him with a tracking number. I confirmed with PayPal that it was fraudulent and he immediately deleted his eBay account and left. This transaction was for $1500, so it’s not like I was just going to ship it off to Nigeria and hope I get the money.
Shortly thereafter, in the random junk mail I get, I noticed a spam message from what appeared to be my bank. My girlfriend was amazed that I knew it was spam. So, this brings me to my point. NEVER click on a link in an email and fill in your personal information…no matter how legitimate it may seem. I highly recommend opening up a separate browser window and visiting the site directly. It’s easy to steal graphics and make a simple page that may appear to be your financial institution in an effort to get all of your personal information.
March 16th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Many of these phishing e-mails even contain actual links to the real site, just to throw you off. Example, you may see a real link to the Privacy Policy of E-Bay, but the link to submit your E-Bay account info is something like ebay.cu.de.304958437.ru or something crazy.
When I sold a truck for my company, I listed on Yahoo Autos, EVERY response (about 7 or
were from scam artists, trying to send me a cashier’s check for a larger amount than the purchase, and requesting I wire the difference to somewhere in the Balkans. Undoubtably, I would have lost the truck, wired the money, then found out the cashier’s check was a forgery!
March 18th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Wayne - that’s exactly what would have happened in my situation. It’s ridiculous - and even though we are cautious about that kind of stuff, there are plenty of people out there who go ahead with the transaction. This is why you see news stories about how buying/selling things online is risky. It’s really not - you just have to have common sense against scammers.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:16 am
The first thing that I include in e-mails and things of this nature is my CC# and my personal telephone number, along with social security number. This ensures that all my information is valid and that anyone can use it in any way they desire. You never know when someone is going to find something cool that I might want… they probably need my stuff to get it for me right?
March 20th, 2006 at 11:26 am
!(exactly)
March 22nd, 2006 at 5:31 pm
!(!exactly))