eBay Fraud Scams exposed

This YouTube video illustrates how recent eBay changes “protecting bidder’s privacy” afftect you as a buyer when you decide to participate in bidding on eBay items. eBay touted that they are removing transparency from bidding process to protect you. I have a different opinion. eBay perfers to let shill bidding rampant on their site and now you cannot detect it because you have no way of knowing whom you bid against. When sellers shill their items, you as a buyer pay more and eBay makes more money. Simple.

Watch this YouTube eye opener!

And check out other videos by the same author.
Remember: S.A.F.E. = Stay Away From Ebay

In the article eBay: pro-choice, but only when it suits the writer brought up an interesting point when he said:

“… and certainly hasn’t done much to neutralise the increasing toxicity of the eBay brand.

Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding!, I thought. eBay Brand is becoming increasingly toxic. What caused this? Major Media finally noticed and begun publishing news of too many years with too many complaints by eBay customers who were ripped off, cheated, scammed and simply ignored by eBay management.

Then I found another article by the same Author: eBay trashed its brand for sake of profits he wrote earlier.

Randy Smythe published this Article: eBay death of thousand cuts in February 2008
warning about management’s questionable decisions and changing marketplace conditions.

eBay’s managemen IS aware they are losing marketshare, as eBay’s spokesman Griff mentioned just a few days ago at eBay Live! 2008:

“
Griff: We had to make these changes because, without buyers, there will be no eBay in two years.

“

But unfortunately it appears that solutions offered by eBay top brass are still in the spirit of money grabbing, uncompetitive, monopolistic strategy which permiates everything eBay has done for the past 5 years. Thus eBay continues to be perceived as a marketplace full of fakes, cheats, scammers, stolen goods headed by the type of management who will close their eyes to the crimes perpetrated on their website (since they derive revenues from such crimes) till they get sued out of millions and forced by courts to make the venue safer.

Just before I completed publishing this, another news source appeared with the same observation: Sydney Morning Herald published just one hour ago: eBay pays the price for PayPal debacle

It’s hard to imagine anyone doing more damage to eBay’s reputation than the auction giant has done to itself over the past few months.

Finally bowing to public (and potential legal) pressure, eBay last week announced it has scrapped plans to force its members onto the PayPal payment system, which it owns, by excluding all other payment options except cash on delivery.

Everyone from the Reserve Bank to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission could see it was anti-competitive and monopolistic. EBay insisted it was for the protection of the buyers and sellers. My only surprise was that it could maintain this public stance with a straight face.

Update: 7/12/2008 Here is a link to eBay Brand discussion from 2005. So three years later time has shown that many of the industry experts were right three years ago.

Every year The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) issues a report on Internet crime.

You guessed it! eBay is #1 leader in internet crime statistics by permitting rampant fraud on it’s site.
Here is a full link to the report

http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreport/2007_IC3Report.pdf in PDF format.

IC3 agrees with this eBay user, who called eBay : The Worlds Biggest ONLINE Crime Ring and you can see the famous YouTube Video on eBay : The Worlds Biggest ONLINE Crime Ring here

BTW, eBay PR Spin department always maintained that the fraud rate on eBay site is less than 0.1 percent, which is a complete BS. I have finally found a mention on how eBay Spin department calculates this fraud percentage. Here it is, directly from horse’s mouth, as published in this CNN Money Article
“eBay says the loss to the company due to fraud in the first quarter of 2007 amounted to less than 0.1 percent of its revenue - but with net revenue of $1.8 billion, that still leaves plenty of transactions that could have been better protected. Last summer, for example, a Manhattan company that auctioned thousands of pieces of jewelry on eBay agreed to pay $400,000 to settle charges that it inflated prices by bidding in its own auctions.”

Note the KEY WORD: “loss to the company due to fraud” : so this less than one tenth of one percent fraud rate eBay Spinsters tout are losses TO EBAY. How about losses to the eBay customers????????? It’s important to listen when eBay Spinsters serve news media their usual Kool Aid, comparing apples with oranges.

eBay scammers who hijack legitimate seller accounts use a disposable email address at a free email provider to lure eBay shoppers into off eBay transaction. eBay has announced that for safety reasons email addresses will no longer be allowed in eBay listing descriptions starting in September 2008. That’s a step in the right direction! After all, each eBay listing has contact the seller button that is built by eBay into the listing format so showing email address is redundant and unsafe. I am not sure how eBay will tackle a listing like this, where the scammer creates a large JPG or GIF image and places the text as well as email address onto this image and makes that image part of the auction.

This image comes from fake scam auction for Canon 600mm f 4 is L,Canon 300mm f 2.8 is L, … hopefully by the time you read this article, the eBay auction has been canceled so we have saved a screenshot of this fake eBay auction on a hijacked eBay seller account on our server.

If you look at our hijacked eBay sellers section, you will find screenshots of hundreds fake auctions on hijacked eBay seller accounts, they all have one thing in common: very prominent free email address in the listing urging the unsuspecting buyer to contact the ’seller’ at that free email address.

I had to bring that lipstick on a pig picture in again. eBay has just been exposed trying to hide / delete / censor the ugly fallout from it’s new feeback policy.

eBay is full of scammers. eBay has been full of scammers. eBay is a scammer paradise. eBay tries their damnest to deny this and hide the truth about scams on it’s own site, instead of working to eliminate those scams.

In the traditional spirit of trying to hide the scams and scam artists on eBay site, misleading unsuspecting users to that false feeling of eBay being safe, once again, eBay deleted evidence of the new eBay feedback policy changes being immediately adopted by eBay scammers to abuse eBay members.

While eBay focuses it’s efforts on covering up scams on eBay and PayPal sites EBAY shares dropped 2.33% in a single day down to $29.31 by close of market June 2, 2008.

If eBay censors YOU on eBay message Boards, I recommend you take a look at the Yahoo Message FORUM for eBAY stock, perhaps eBay censors can silence you on eBay forums, but you can still present your story to eBAY shareholders, so they are not kept in dark.
visit eBay FINANCE FORUM ON YAHOO We know eBay does not listen to it’s customers, BUT eBay does listen to it’s shareholders.

So what is this all about? Stay with me for a minute.

eBay feedback changes: eBay no longer allows eBay sellers to leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers. eBay sellers are screaming bloody murder because they know eBay is full of con artists or nutso buyers who will abuse this and try to extort financial gain from the sellers threatening unjustified negative feedback, leaving just plain crazy malicious eBay feedback, destroying business reputations on a whim.

Yesterday AuctionBytes brought published article on eBay’s new feedback policy being abused by scam artist to extort money from eBay sellers. A link to the eBay seller discussion forum is provided from the AuctionBytes article.

Sure enough, eBay deleted the whole discussion. If you try to reach the link pointed to by AuctionBytes Article Sopranos Meets eBay in Feedback Extortion Scheme
The other case involves a feedback extortion ring that looks like an eBay version of the Sopranos. An eBay seller posting on the eBay discussion boards published correspondence he said he received from the winner of one of his auctions. The buyer reportedly said he and four other eBay users “are in the business of selling Positive Feedbacks to eBay Sellers for $20 each, totaling $100 for 5 Positive Feedbacks. If you purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks for $100, you not only get to sell your items, you also receive 5 Positive Feedbacks. As you well know, Feedback is EVERYTHING to an eBay seller on whether they are successful or not. I’m sure that you want to remain successful in your eBay business. Plus, along with the 5 Positive Feedbacks, we will also Guarantee Never to contact you again and we take you off of our list.”

This article links to:
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000711130&tstart=0&mod=1212267983950 and if you click on that link…. YOU GUESSED IT! IT WAS DELETED BY EBAY
Instead of that eBay discussion, you will see a message:
This discussion thread has been removed for one of the following reasons:
-the initial post in the thread was in violation of our Board Usage Policy.
-the member that started the thread has requested that it be removed.
-the thread expired due to inactivity

eBay routinely censors “uncomfortable” truths from it’s forums. Thus we even have a specific section here, ebay censorship, dedicated to what never existed on eBay… or at least what eBay claims never existed or was removed by a glitch, mistake or an oooopsie!

Now let’s see, we know the member did not ask for their message board thread to be removed. So that’s out. Next: we could not find anything in the initial post to be against eBay Board Usage Policy - and the thread certainly did not expire due to inactivity… the comments kept pouring in, there were over 400 when eBay censor decided to pull the plug. So what was it?

Again, it must be accidental, as the current eBay spokesperson put it describing previous eBay Discussion Board deletions:

…suggested that forum posts critical of eBay’s policies had been deleted. EBay denied that any forum deletions were intentional. If any posts were taken down “it was accidental,” the spokesman said. “We’re not afraid of hearing from our community and allowing them to post and discuss things and be angry on our boards”

Here is a page one of the DELETED EBAY DISCUSSION, certainly no rule breaking there, IT’S JUST YOUR USUAL COVER UP BY EBAY, TRYING TO HIDE SCAMS AND PROTECT SCAM ARTISTS ON IT’S SITE:

Discussion Post a reply | Print
Sellers, I just got the following email:
in**anaftw (9 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:01 PDT
Listen very carefully. I am the winner of this item. I have 4 other eBay Users in place either bidding on or have won items from you plus myself totaling 5. We are prepared to leave you 5 Positive Feedbacks or 5 Negative Feedbacks depending on your actions. In a nutshell, we are in the business of selling Positive Feedbacks to eBay Sellers for $20 each, totaling $100 for 5 Positive Feedbacks. If you purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks for $100, you not only get to sell your items, you also receive 5 Positive Feedbacks. As you well know, Feedback is EVERYTHING to an eBay seller on whether they are successful or not. I’m sure that you want to remain successful in your eBay business. Plus, along with the 5 Positive Feedbacks, we will also Guarantee Never to contact you again and we take you off of our list. You’ll even get a receipt for your purchase. Now, here’s the important part. If you refuse to purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks, we will leave you 5 Negative Feedbacks for starters. We have 100’s & 100’s of eBay Users in place that we can use to leave feedbacks. In fact, we have enough to consistently leave you Negative Feedbacks for months resulting in you having to shut down your business. The absolute worst thing that you can do at this point is to try and contact eBay at any time about this or refuse to cooperate; we Will start leaving you Negative Feedbacks and shut your business down. Make no mistake, we’ve been doing this for years and have the power & resources to continually leave you Negative Feedbacks resulting in the closing of your business. Think about this, if you try to report us to eBay and they try and suspend our account or something like that, it will not stop us whatsoever. Remember, I said we have 100’s if not 1,000’s of eBay Users in place that we can use to leave you Negative Feedbacks over & over again until you are forced to shut your business down that you worked so hard to build up. Even if eBay were to keep suspending our user accounts, we have plenty more that we can use to keep leaving you Negative Feedbacks and there’s No way that eBay can keep up and stop us. They have tried & failed miserably. They also know about what we do. So the best and smartest thing that you can do is protect your business and just purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks from us. That way, it’s done and over with and you can successfully continue to run your business without ever hearing from us again. We will give you up to 72 hours from now, to reply. The sooner, the better of course. Just send us an email stating that you want to purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks from us and let us know your main email that you use so we can contact you. If we don’t hear from you by the end of the 72 hours, we will assume that you are refusing to cooperate and we will start leaving you Negative Feedbacks. So don’t do anything stupid. The smartest thing that you can do is take this seriously, we know what we’re doing. After we hear your reply to this email, we will contact you with further instructions.

The buyer is in fact the person who won my auction.

So… what would you do?
Previous 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 … 11 Next See last post
421 replies Date posted Reply #

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tr**arn (44 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:03 PDT 1 of 421
Report the email and send it to Ebay for FB extortion.
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19**jenn (15 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:03 PDT 2 of 421
Did this come through “my messages?” Yikes! I’d forward it to ebay.
Folks, hang onto your dashboards.
Here comes another speedbump!
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tr**arn (44 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:03 PDT 3 of 421
What is the buyer’s ID so we can block them?
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in**anaftw (9 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:04 PDT 4 of 421
A little more about me and the auction:
Sold for just over $100
I used featured plus (will I get that $9.95 back?)
I am a lowly bronze power seller with sales just under $2,000/month, so nothing that outstanding, but it’s a good chunk of my income.

The buyer has 3 feedback, all over 1 year old and from NARUs.
The name and email address that it came from match the name and email on the account that won the auction, so this doesn’t seem to be a hidden scam from someone who isn’t an ebay user.
I currently have 100% positive and a little over 500 total feedback in the past year.
I’ve been told to call PS support on Monday about this and have forwarded the email to ebay.
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ch**t49 (91 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:06 PDT 5 of 421
so you have thier address? drive to thier house and burn it to the ground
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ci**girlhardware (378 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:06 PDT 6 of 421
This sounds like it might be criminal.
http://www.ic3.gov/
from the site:
“The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).”
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pl**sedtameetcha (12 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:07 PDT 7 of 421
Scary.
LR
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lo**postid (0 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:14 PDT 8 of 421
sounds like a “business protection” fee to me LOL.

I would love to get this email!
Have it tracked to the hometown, and have them arested for extortion.
Sure, the cops don’t care about feedback, but:
The absolute worst thing that you can do at this point is to try and contact eBay at any time about this or refuse to cooperate; we Will start leaving you Negative Feedbacks and shut your business down. Make no mistake, we’ve been doing this for years and have the power & resources to continually leave you Negative Feedbacks resulting in the closing of your business.
That is a personal threat! Notice they don’t specify what “business”, it could be an in home business or in town. This is a personal threat, and should be treated as such.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:19 PDT 9 of 421
I would go to the media immediately, forget ebay, they’re slower than molasses in January in Alaska.
Print it out with full headers, a copy of the auction, a copy of the bidding history of that auction and all other pertinent paper trail and go to your local tv and newspapers with it.
I would also send it to the State AG’s office in the buyer’s state with a cover letter explaining factually (no emotion) how this came about.
Don’t let ebay bury this one.
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mo**erof3wonderfulkids (0 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:19 PDT 10 of 421
Wow
He won your auction and instead of paying you for the widget he bought he wants YOU to pay him $100 to get 5 Positives? That means he is ready to bid on 4 more of your auctions?
BLOCK HIM.
Then report him to Ebay…and pull contact information. It’s probably not valid and that is one of the reasons you can get negs removed.
————————-
I’m offically on Strike-No listing and no buying until the Feedback Policy is Null and Void.
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pu**e*couture (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:20 PDT 11 of 421
It was only a matter of time………..
And eBay claims it was “worried about SECOND CHANCE OFFERS”
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:21 PDT 12 of 421
purse, don’t raise my blood pressure SCO scams my behind!
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tu**eyjackson (324 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:23 PDT 13 of 421
We’ll see if the system works. If eBay does what they say they’ll do, this nut is out of luck.
As to the fee credit for featured plus, yes, as long as this was not a multiple item listing and you successfully file the UID.
I wouldn’t mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.
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wi**ysgrandma (2341 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:23 PDT 14 of 421
Check your e-mail
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pu**e*couture (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:24 PDT 15 of 421
Seriously, I get chills……………..thinking about SCO “fraud” claims by eBay
I swear, I have bought AT LEAST 900-1,000 widgets *PER YEAR* on eBay, and have NEVER received a fraudulent SCO.
Can you say fraudulent FRAUD?
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:24 PDT 16 of 421
who are the other 4 referred to?
Come on, this is the system ebay created, let ebay handle this publicly and address how they will stop this nonsense now. Not one seller at a time.
It is extortion and it’s a chargeable offense.
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co**ie10 (11166 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:25 PDT 17 of 421
I would go to the media immediately, forget ebay, they’re slower than molasses in January in Alaska.
That’s probably the dumbest thing you’ve said on this board.
OP - you HAVE to report it to Ebay. They are the only people who can shut down this looney.
By all means, send it to the media as well, but Ebay must be your first port of call.
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ww**88 (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:25 PDT 18 of 421
You need to report this to eBay as extortion. Pull the buyer’s contact info (email and phone) and call him and email him. If the phone and/or email is bogus, report to eBay (if bogus any feedback he gives will be deleted). His contact info will have his address. Call the police department in his city and file a report.
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ai**rushayatollah (198 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:26 PDT 19 of 421
They will block the one ID, then the seller will get negs and NPB’s out the wazoo.
I actually wouldn’t go through FeeBay because if they take any kind of action at all the police may not have to get involved.
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ho**luludance (32 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:26 PDT 20 of 421
Post this on Trust and Safety.
Does Powerseller support function over the weekend?
I’d call Live Help.
File the extortion report.
I wouldn’t answer them at all.
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ai**rushayatollah (198 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:26 PDT 21 of 421
Contact ISP though.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:28 PDT 22 of 421
IF ebay had a track record of doing the right thing in a timely manner, I would use ebay.
Can anyone say they’ve got a good track record?
Go to the media, let the media know that the system ebay has set up is failing miserably.
Not only will this fool leave negative feedback, the seller will then have to go through all of ebay’s hoops to get it removed.
Who are the other 4? Are there 4 others? Talk about the perfect threat.
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co**ie10 (11166 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:28 PDT 23 of 421
Shame you didn’t post with your real ID so that we could all see who this person is that won the auction.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:29 PDT 24 of 421
cobbie, posting with a selling ID is a good way for people to mess with your auctions, don’t you think the OP has had enough of that already?
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pl**t1here2 (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:29 PDT 25 of 421
Send me their address.
If they’re close enough, I’d like to have face to face, um, chat with them,
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ai**rushayatollah (198 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:29 PDT 26 of 421
A cheerleader.
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ho**luludance (32 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:30 PDT 27 of 421
Shame you didn’t post with your real ID so that we could all see who this person is that won the auction.
Oh, yes, and then some numnut here will bring the buyer to this thread and all hell breaks loose.
Nancy, I appreciate your sentiment about eBay, but eBay DOES shut down people like this. The advice given here has to be what’s best for the OP, not what will embarrass eBay the most.
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tr**arn (44 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:31 PDT 28 of 421
This is one example of when a seller should post with their selling ID. Without it we can’t block or help report this scary buyer. What if this buyer is trying this scam on multiple sellers. The OP should warn them.
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lo**postid (0 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:31 PDT 29 of 421
After we hear your reply to this email, we will contact you with further instructions.
That was a mistake on their part. Respond to it and see what the ‘further instructions’ are! Maybe it’ll be a better way to get info on this guy.
Try telling him you need his account info so you can transfer the $100 to him directly. And you don’t trust paypal for this transaction.
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lo**postid (0 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:32 PDT 30 of 421
Join him in his game, but make sure he never actually gets any money from you
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pl**t1here2 (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:33 PDT 31 of 421
Not sure if it was mentioned, but don’t worry about possible negs, Ebay most likely will do away with any you get from this.
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ca**mom3boys (924 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:34 PDT 32 of 421
Please post the auction number.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:34 PDT 33 of 421
Honolulu, if you think hiding this ‘in house’ with ebay is the solution, fine.
I don’t. This is out of control garbage and those who want to stay and sell are getting all kinds of ridiculous feedback (because a buyer can with impunity ) and then this kind of cr@p?
And since the policies have changed, get an eyefull and see what people are teaching others to do to sellers on ebay, just google it and you’ll be shocked.
The plans are being formulated and some will take it to the extreme we see here.
Unless someone is prosecuted or publicly shamed, it will not stop.
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tr**arn (44 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:34 PDT 34 of 421
Lulu, I didn’t think about someone tattling to the buyer. There are some that would do just that.
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pl**t1here2 (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:35 PDT 35 of 421
These people need to be jailed.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:35 PDT 36 of 421
Furthermore, will ebay block this buyer from registering again? How?
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ai**rushayatollah (198 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:35 PDT 37 of 421
Wall Street Journal.
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my**gbokali (256 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:36 PDT 38 of 421
This is BS OP….report to ebay, call the police, scream it on the hilltops…I wouild tell everyone you can. YOU CANNOT LET THEM DO THIS TO YOU…..no matter what they say.
DO NOT GIVE IN….please. I wish I could help you personaly cause this is just down right wrong not to mention has to be against the law.
and its EBays fault. Sorry, just my opinion.
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mi**yteoil (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:37 PDT 39 of 421
You really need to report this guy under multiple reporting functions through ebay. Maybe forward it to the higher ups at eBay also. They really should see what has been created with their new fb policy.
I also agree that it is a shame that we don’t know the id of this person.
Does he have a lot of fb?
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Page 1 of 11 Go to page
Previous 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 … 11

and a screenshot of page 1 of 11 of the Censored / Deleted eBay forum from the Google Cache

How much do you wanna bet eBay will request Google to delete the cache???

About a month ago media news reported arrest of Romanian coder, eBay hacker Vladuz, whose real name is Vlad Constantin Duiculescu, a young ( 20 year old ) high school graduate from Bucharest, who illegally accessed the e-Bay database from 2005 to 2007 and caused $2m in damage to the online sales site.

Just last month, Vladuz was arrested in a joint operation by the Romanian anti-organised crime unit and the Home Intelligence Service.

He told the judge that he hacked the e-Bay servers because he wanted to be famous and had abandoned school because he had nothing to learn there. It would be nice to get the transcript of what else Vladuz he told the judge since eBay denies any hacking to eBay servers ever occured. Remember, eBay labeled this incident as “- Some messages were published on a community board on the eBay.de (Germany) web site by a person who gained access to a small number of employee email accounts.” and here eBay spokespersong proclaiming “He did find access to a small amount of customer service rep e-mail accounts. He used those to go on discussion forums, as a pink — when an employee posts, it’s highlighted in pink. He did that in an attempt basically to say, ‘Ha ha, look what I did.”

It’s fantastic to hear this hacker kid was arrested, hopefully they will lock him up for a while. It would be interesting to see how eBay claims their security was not breached at all while the hacker braggs about accessing eBay system and servers. It’s the cover up odor that bothers me on this. eBay misleads it’s customers into a false sense of safety and security.

Some Follow up Vladuz : eBay Hackers from Romania bits:

• Here is a link to the article from Southeast European Times from 5/22/2008 giving some additional information on Romanian hackers posing increasing international threat

• Here is a Google Translateed article about partnership between Romanian Authorities and Ebay which stemmed from the investigation of the Vladuz case

So when shopping on eBay, be extra vigilant! As of today the same scammer, phisher and hacker we’ve been tracking for YEARS is still alive and well, hijacking eBay sellers, uploading fake scam eBay auctions and scamming HUNDREDS of unsuspecting eBay buyers into thinking eBay is safe place to shop. Seller feedback does not mean anything when seller has been hijacked!

OK, enough with words, let’s lay down some proof. Here are auctions this scammer is running on MANY HIJACKED SELLER ACCOUNTS ON EBAY. These are just auctions he is running this minute. He is not a very smart hacker, if we can find him for years without any special tools. Obviously, he is smart enough to be evading eBay security army that consists of 2,000 security professionals backed by 5 Billion dollars in cash.

The phisher is currently using this line:
NOTICE: Please do not bid if you don’t have the money. I will cancel all bids if you do not contact me first. I have had bad experience with non-paying bidders and I do not want that to repeat. If you are interested and want to know more about this auction then please email me at:
Mitica233@aol.com

• eBay seller Seller: jsti**on54 Feedback:100 % Positive Member: since Aug-20-03 in United States hijacked, with fake auction on DW Drum Collector Series Drums drum set This Fake eBay auction has 14 Bidders, [[ read as 14 victims of this scammer, who believe they are safe on eBay dealing with 100% feedback seller, those eBay victim buyers are being mislead by eBay inti thinking they are safe on eBay]]
• The same scammer hijacked another 100% Feedback eBay seller Seller: fool4**nkin Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since May-21-04 in United States and is currently running scam fake eBay auction or Roland Electronic Drum Sets -TD20S-BK - V-Pro TD20 Kit which has 19 Bids now - Read 19 VICTIMS and on the same hijacked eBay seller account, he is also running Fake Scam eBay auction for Sean Ryon 16 Ranch Cutting Saddle with additional 11 BIDS / Victims. The strategy is simple, hacker collects bids from unsuspecting sellers and as soon as the scam auction price reaches higher value (here is a screenshot of that same auction few minutes later), he cancels all the bids- screenshot here so he can attract more victims to this super bargain listing.
• And that’s not all, there are many more hijacked by him, like this 100% Feedback eBay seller karenzita1 Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since Oct-05-05 in United States where the eBay scammer uploaded Fake auction on eBay for Roland Fantom X8 with Case and this auction has 15 BIDS ..ehm.. read Victims who think eBay is safe place to shop.
• Yep, there is more, this scammer has also hijacked Seller: kigh**oy
  Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since Apr-23-99 in United States and uploaded Scam Auction for Canon XL2 BRAND NEW and currently has only 1 Bidder Victim.

• Another Hijacked eBay Seller: angi**61 Feedback: 100 % Positive
  Member: since Nov-17-02 in United States where this scammer uploaded Fake eBay auction for John Deere 425 Lawn & Garden Tractor

• Another 100% eBay Seller: ferns**ction Feedback: 100 % Positive
  Member: since May-02-00 in United States hijacked with a SCAM Fake auction on eBay for Precor EFX576i Elliptical Crosstrainer

• Another 100% Feedback eBat Seller Hijacked dymun**l2k5 Feedback: 100 % Positive
  Member: since Apr-03-05 in United States with a Scam eBay Auction for Bose Lifestyle series 4 Surround System :: Note in that Screenshot: PAYPAL ACCOUNT REQUIRED TO BID! The scammer will try to hijack bidder paypal accounts and most likely is able to Accept PayPal payments. PayPal is becoming a favorite payment method of those scammers

At the moment there are other hackers we could find quickly, using disposable email addresses luring unsuspecting buyers. Some of the hackers have Hijacked PayPal accounts so the Western Union eBay payment is no longer a sole payment way you can get scammed with. Hijacked PayPal accounts have become an important tool for eBay phishers / scammers.

This scammer is currently using disposable email address rb.biz99@gmail.com

and hijacked eBay Seller: da**ta$2 ( 433) Changed User ID (less than 30 days) Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since Jun-13-01 in United States and uploaded Fake Scam eBay auction for PRECOR 576i ELLIPTICAL CROSSTRAINER (EXPERIENCE SERIES) : note this auction ends in 8 Minutes! so much for eBay Trust and Safety Team of 2000 security professionals removing FAKE auctions quickly.

Yet another Scam Disposable email address proclaiming this on another hijacked eBay Seller Account:

BEFORE YOU BID,CONTACT ME FOR THE BUY NOW PRICE,BECAUSE IT IS VERY LOW!!!
Please email me ONLY at: davidbarr011@gmail.com ! If you really want it !

Here he has hijacked eBay Seller: neurosoc**lite Feedback: 100 % Positive
Member: since Sep-10-03 in United States and is successfully running a fake eBay Scam auction for **NEW** 17′ APPLE MACBOOK PRO 2.4 GHZ 4GB RAM 160 GB HD with 22 bids [[ victims to false security feeling on eBay ]] This auction has been running since yesterday and certainly collected plenty victims who will get burned on eBay again.

And last but not least, you can take a look at this 100 % feedback seller marked by a hijacker whose current tag line is :
My Request is to CONTACT me directly to my email address
My personal EMAIL adres is : deangalbin@gmail.com

The poor Hijacked ebay Seller Seller: ri**3 Feedback: 100 % Positive
Member: since Jan-03-00 in United States even noticed his account is hijacked on on this fake auction for BRAND NEW XBOX 360 Elite Console+2 Controllers & Game the hijacked seller posted 3 days ago! :
On May-21-08 at 06:17:35 PDT, seller added the following information:
THIS IS NOT MY ITEM!! Please do not bid!!

Although eBay would like you to believe it is safe to shop there, the evidence suggests otherwise.

eBay has certainly improved on taking down fake scam auctions that appear on hijacked eBay seller accounts, duping eBay newbie buyers into thinking they are safe on eBay buying from an established seller with a high feedback. However such auctions are still abundant, so be careful, do not trust eBay. Scammer can upload his scam image directly into eBay servers, such as this image uploaded in FEBRUARY of this year and eBay will gladly host it for the scammer for months after any listing it was uploaded for expired so the scammer can reuse it. This scam email address Qveste@aol.com is a known eBay account hijacker and scammer. He just hijacked another Powerseller Seller: hs***uid (6144Feedback score is 5,000 to 9,999) Member:since Jan-25-99 in United States and uploaded fake eBay scam BOSE Lifestyle 48 Media Center DVD + 10 Bose Speakers auction.

That same scammer with Qveste@Aol.com email address usually runs many auctions on MANY HIJACKED SELLERS at the same time. Here is another hijacked eBay seller : Seller: janet***99 ( 2249Feedback score is 1000 to 4,999) Feedback: 99.0 % Positive
Member: since Dec-02-99 in United States and you can see a screenshot of the scam eBay auction for 2 Pioneer CDJ-1000 MK3 CD Players + 1 DJM-800 Mixer on this hijacked seller account with thousands of feedbacks.

This scammer using jameswittt@gmail.com email address hijacked another eBay seller Seller: me***74( 164) Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since Apr-21-03 in United States and uploaded scam eBay auction for Roland Fantom X8 Sampling Workstation Keyboard 88 Keys

I thought when CA Security Advisor reported PayPal XSS page vulnerability in Feburary of this year, PayPal assured the writer this phishing hole was closed. See the full article: PayPal Closes a Phishing Vulnerability Published Feb 17 2008, 10:44 AM by Stefan Berteau. Was that just a lip service by PayPal?

A new article, different researcher shows the same vulnerability here in yesterday’s report:

A serious scripting error has been discovered on PayPal that could enable attackers to create convincing spoof pages that steal users’ authentication credentials.

The cross-site scripting bug is made all the more critical because it resides on a page that uses an extended validation secure sockets layer certificate. The new-fangled SSL mechanism is designed to give users a higher degree of confidence that the page they’re visiting is secure by turning their browser address bar green.

But Finnish researcher Harry Sintonen figured out a way to inject his own code into a supposedly protected PayPal page even as the green bar lulled visitors into believing it hadn’t been tampered with. Sintonen’s code simply caused an Internet Explorer alert window to open with the words “Is it safe?” as evidenced by the screenshot …..

Full Article with the screenshot of the vulnerability has been published on ChannelRegister.Co.Uk ‘Secure’ PayPal page is… you guessed it by Dan Goodin in San Francisco
16 May 2008 20:57

PayPal’s site is silent about this vulnerability… I guess the “hide your head in the sand” approach or “if you do not admit to ut, it’s not there” speaks volumes about how concerned PayPal really is about safety of their users.

PayPal is no stranger to security vulnerabilities:

• PayPal fixes phishing hole by Joris Evers, CNET News.com Published: June 16, 2006 4:12 PM PDT
• July 20, 2006 Netcraft reports this same XSS PayPal vulnerability existed for 2 years!
  

Quick check this morning finds many eBay sellers and powersellers hijacked and fake auctions uploaded to their accounts:
Like this eBay seller where scammer uploaded bunch of fake auctions, like this scam auction on eBay Marantz reference series MA9-S2 with a typical scammers image inviting the unsuspecting eBay victims to email the scammer to a disposable email address andresler299@gmail.com

Another hijacked eBay seller victim of this scammer advertising fake auction for Panasonic AG-DVX100B 3-CCD Mini-DV Cinema Video inviting eBay victims of this scam to email him to a disposable email address at jhatch2@gmail.com

This article on consumerist.com

It’s Now Completely Impossible To Sell A Laptop On Ebay is a true account of a random person trying to sell laptop on eBay and accounting his experiences with a scammer after a scammer. The blog entry is sad but comical in it’s special way as the blogger describes the ineptness of eBay Live Help and email assistance he received during this typical eBay experience. Definitely worth the read…. the article concludes

” But seriously, try CraigsList or a flyer in your neighborhood. EBay is broken.”

In late January we have heard of eBay acquiring an Israeli security firm Fraud Sciences, reportedly to help make eBay PayPal a safer place, although it was rumored on TechCrunch that:

January 28th, 2008 at 11:10 am

Guys, it’s an inside job. The new president for Paypal knows the VC firms for FS and his first act of president is to help out his friends by buying some no-name fraud company. BTW, some factoids, 1) revenues weren’t $10M a year, they were $1M their last year, 2) It wasn’t $169M all in, but that was based on performance expectations which will never be met because they just alerted all their customers they were closing their doors and killing off any revenue streams …

OK, it’s three months later… How is that x million investment doing? I sincerely hope that millions of investor’s funds are not just squandered away. Security area is a best place eBay should invest some capital and we would like to get some upates on what’s new and exciting following this acquisition.

Technorati Profile

…another day another eBay Auction seller compromised.

Same scammer. Just a different hijacked seller.

Looks like our scammer boy switched email addresses, now he is scamming eBay buyers under esale92@gmail.com

eBay lets this scammer fleece unsuspecting eBay buyers daily. Here is a screenshot of the 176 scam eBay auction listings uploaded to poor hijacked eBay seller from Mexico and sample screenshots of some of the scam fraud auctions on eBay:

• McIntosh MC252 Amplifier 250×2 500×1 Scam Auction Listing
• McIntosh MC275 MC-275 TUBE Power Amplifier Scame Fake Ebay Auction
• All Original McIntosh MC240 Excellent Working Condition SCAM FAKE AUCTION ON EBAY

The complete list of the scam items will be added to our frequently scammed eBay Listings items list.

Update 4-24-2008: the scammer is busy at work as usual, running circles around eBay security, unfortunately. A quick check this morning finds a

freshly hijacked eBay seller in Spain with over 150 Scam Ebay fraud auctions. Here is a screenshot of the Scam on eBay: Dale Chavez Western Show Saddle.

Beware of buying high end items on eBay!

And the same fellow also hijacked many other sellers right now, another quick check on the list of this scammers items he posted on eBay Auctions previously shows this hacked eBay seller account in Australia with another set of fake eBay auctions, like this Brother Innovis 4000D auction with another scam free email address to lure unsuspecting newbie eBay buyers gmkie1980@gmail.com

Update 4-25-2008 : yet another email address same scammer hijacked another seller, this is just a spot check at a random time, the scammer is now also using this image asking eBay victims to email him to ele322@gmail.com. Here is a screenshot of the scamsters image he inserts into those fake auctions.

We are tracking this one scammer for years now. He must be one of the real slow learners because he is so easy to spot and track. According to scammer’s own admission there are hundreds of them on eBay making living daily. He is just one of the army. We’ve been tracking this guy since 2005 and he’s still scamming like there’s no tommorow. Just now he has uploaded over 2500 FAKE SCAM AUCTIONS on a single hijacked eBay seller account - notice on that linked screenshot, the number of scam auctions is just 1178 scam high end auctions. By the time we took inventory of the listings, the total number of auctions this eBay scammer uploaded was 2663 scam auctions on a single hijacked seller account. They are the typical email me to my gmail/aol/hotmail/msn disposable email address for buy it now (off eBay) deal of a lifetime now. Here is a screenshot of one of the 2663 scam eBay auctions this scammer uploaded on that poor hijacked seller’s account tonight. One of his many disposable email addresses is biz.kastor@gmail.com with a history of hijacking other accounts on eBay and tracked by others. But wait, that’s not this scammers only email address, he operates with many, after all he is a professional eBay scammer and makes a decent living even for US standards doing this. He is also known as trevor023@gmail.com with a a full blown photo album to faciliate his eBay scams and quick check on eBay located 2 different sellers hijacked with this scammers email address published: hijacked seller stein**** with fake eBay Roland Phantom X8 with case scam auction and the same hijacker breaking into the account of eBay seller in Australia with a scam auction for 2 Pioneer CDJ-1000 MK3 CD Players with contact email address trevor023@gmail.com and another seller in US hijacked by the same scammer trevor023@gmail.com with the same 2 Pioneer CDJ-1000 MK3 CD Player - SCAM-O-RAMA on eBay. These auctions have been running for a while, see the link - this is a 5 day auction with 5 hours to go… so much for eBay taking these scam auctions down quickly….. and these auctions have plenty of victims (aka newbie buyers on eBay). By coincidence or by design another seller hijacked in France with an item from this sellers repertoire, this eBay auction title says in French LISTING NOT VALID - IDENTITY HIJACKED and the auctions advertises email address gigi_pizdulici99@yahoo.com .

The current list of items of this eBay Hacker / Scammer / Phisher is quite extensive, we are going to publish it here so in case you are shopping for one of these items, please be extra cautious.

Here is a list of items this scammer is currently uploading daily to several hijacked eBay seller accounts

The perplexing question is: if we can find and track this eBay scammer on eBay so easily and consistently without any resources or priviledged security tools, why does not a multi billion dollar company ( eBay ) care enough to squash this scammer? Do they not care about safety of eBay customers? Or are there just too many eBay scammers and the fraud is so wide-spread through eBay that eBay team of over 2000 fraud prevention staff just cannot keep up?

Finally a step in the right direction! eBay appears to be catching up with the 20th Century - kudos anyway. Today’s announcement is truly a music to our ears:

April 14, 2008 | 11:45AM PST/PT

John Canfield
Hello…I’m John Canfield, Senior Director for Trust & Safety policy management. My team specializes in working to keep the site safe and protected against fraud. Much of the company’s work around safety happens behind the scenes, but some of our efforts are also public-facing. Masking and protecting our Community’s identities on all bidder IDs on auction-style listings, the PayPal Security Key, our work with Yahoo and other domains to block email from unauthenticated addresses, and encouraging safer payments – each of these address a particular aspect of security and is making a dramatic difference in the overall security and safety of the marketplace and consumers’ confidence in shopping online. Our technologies – those that exist today, as well as those that we are designing for tomorrow – are helping to make the internet safer every day.
I’d like to tell you about a new safety initiative that launches on April 14th.

Trusted Selling with Identity Confirmation
One of the ways criminals attempt to defraud people on eBay is by gaining access to member accounts with well-established reputations which they then use to set up listings in that person’s name. They gain this access often through a phishing email that convinces an unsuspecting member to click a link and enter their User ID and password.

To protect the Community against this type of fraud, beginning today, eBay will start noting which computers members typically use to conduct their buying and selling activity. After our data collection phase, sometime in June eBay will begin verifying our sellers when they list an item to ensure they are logging in from the same machines they have successfully used previously – usually a home or business computer.

If you are a seller, and you attempt to list an item from a different computer – for example, from a PC you are borrowing in a hotel or library – eBay will make an automated call to the phone number you have registered with us to confirm it is really you. We may also prompt you to verify your identity in other ways.

Initially, this identity confirmation process will only be applied to selling, although we may be extending this to other high-visibility activity in the future.

Sellers, please update your registered phone numbers
Now more than ever, having a current phone number on file with eBay is vital to the safety of the Community and to your business. A wrong or outdated phone number may delay your ability to list items or respond to your customers, if eBay cannot verify your identity.

Have a cell phone? Registering it could save you time and money
If you carry a mobile phone, we encourage you to add this number as a secondary phone number in your registration details, so that we can reach you when you are away from your business or residence where you normally use your trusted computer

source: http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200804.shtml#2008-04-14114255

I just have one question for John:

Knowing this is in place. Won’t the scammers/hijackers first change the phone number on the record, then wait a day or so, then list … so the phone authentication would end up in the lap of the hijacker?

… or does phone number change from a DIFFERENT than usual computer also trigger phone or additional verification? … I hope some multi level logic exists on this.

Update 4-19-2008: My question and few others were answered here: eBay Chatter
This change could not come fast enough, hopefully our steady Romanian Hacker will then be stopped from hijacking eBay seller accounts daily and publishing fake auctions, just like he has hijacked another eBay seller right now and publishing those typical high end scam auctions on eBay as we write this.

These past few days our real life projects took us away from time usually needed to monitor eBay fraud auction, hence the silence.

Spot check this morning shows we have the usual scammers running circles around eBay.

Another day on eBay…
…another (few hundred) eBay powersellers hijacked …
…another few thousand fake auctions by professional eBay scammers who are so amateurish even we can find them with minimal tools like a rss feed that picks the usual scam phrases, scam items, scammer’s email addresses etc..

Here is the latest eBay powerseller with almost 1000 feedbacks, nice lingerie store being hacked right now with the usual assortment of fake auctions.

This eBay scammer’s latest signature tag line is:
As i take this auction very seriously i want to speak personally with every interested buyer who’s ready to make the deal of the year. I will sell it only to a serious person,just after i’ll talk with him via e-mail. Questions about condition,more pics, shipping; Contact me at :
Markosshopp@aol.com

here is this eBay Scammer’s and other scammers’ list of fake eBay auction items they love to offer to their eBay victims at a fabulous once in a lifetime deal prices

One has to ponder:

• If we can find those scammers so easily with zero access to anything proprietory, just public RSS tools, why the heck is eBay not finding them and preventing them from fleecing unsuspecting buyers ?
• eBay boasts 5 Billion Dollars in surplus cash: why won’t eBay invest teeny tiny minute fraction of it into improving security on their site ?
• When questioned about the ongoing security issues where massive numbers of users logins and passwords are already compromised and in hands of hackers resulting in vast numbers of fake auctions on eBay, eBay always claims that’s not a problem. Why? What does eBay have to gain by letting fraud rampant on it’s site?