There has been a recent wave of spoof email from fake eBay websites
and email addresses. Spoofs are look-alike emails and websites
designed to steal your account information by asking you to log in to
correct or update some information. This is a form of identity theft
and is a felony in most places, although countries like Nigeria are
famous for not prosecuting and allegedly even funding online scams.

One of the trickiest lately is a tsunami of email messages from e-
bay.com. Notice that I wrote e-bay.com NOT eBay.com...The simple dash
in the email address domain means that the message DID NOT come from
the real eBay. These emails typically threaten you with "Unpaid Item"
notices and account closures if you don't respond immediately. Since
the website you're taken to looks like eBay you may be inclined to
inadvertantly give your login information to crooks who may do any
number of bad (and illegal) things, potentially leaving you with an
empty bank account and a lawsuit.

Here's a quick way to stay out of trouble...
Any time you receive an email from a supposed trusted source such as
eBay and are tempted to click a link in the message, simply mouse over
it first. In most cases, you'll see the actual URL website
destination. If it does not contain ebay.com DON'T CLICK ANYTHING. If
you do end up on the website, check the security certificate if the
web address begins with https (see your browser's help file on how to
do this). The certificate shold list the company and web address of
the owner. If it's not eBay, leave immediately and clear your
browser's web history and cache.

Shutting down the bad guys...
Forward any suspicious eBay emails to sp...@ebay.com. Although they
may not do anything immediately, they eventually investigate and
prosecute repeat offenders. Also remember that legitimate messages
will show up in the eBay Messages page when you log in to your
account, regardless of whether you received an email or not. Simply
deleting the email doesn't prevent the crooks from sending more
fraudulent email to you and others.

Cyber-crime including identity theft is the fastest growing criminal
activity in world history and in some cases, highly organized. Be
defensive and stay out of trouble.

Additional resources can be found here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/recognizing-spoof.html

JC Murphy
Director of eCommerce
Playground Music Center, Inc.