Does anyone know about a possible scam from Singapore?

[patphotog]

Here how it goes;

Someone send me an offer to the exact amount of my asking price...here's the note attach to the offer.

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: https://offer.ebay.co.uk.check-sales.ga/? =&trksid=p3692IwAR0lB6Y422LMO0000h

If you cut and paste this link in your browser you will have to log on to see the article. (Ebay UK)

I have not done so.

Fishing for user name and password seems to be their goal.

I have received this kind of "fake offer" 3 times already...every time from Singapore from different users with zero feedback.

Did this happen to anyone else?

[marnotom!]

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@patphotog wrote:

Here how it goes;

Someone send me an offer to the exact amount of my asking price...here's the note attach to the offer.

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: https://offer.ebay.co.uk.check-sales.ga/? =&trksid=p3692IwAR0lB6Y422LMO0000h

If you cut and paste this link in your browser you will have to log on to see the article. (Ebay UK)

I have not done so.

Fishing for user name and password seems to be their goal.

I have received this kind of "fake offer" 3 times already...every time from Singapore from different users with zero feedback.

Did this happen to anyone else?

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Singapore is an affluent and pretty darned law-abiding country.  Its crime rate is about a ninth of Canada's when expressed in terms of per 100 000 population.  This is a place where the sale of chewing gum is illegal.

There's the possibility that someone or some organization is taking advantage of its good reputation and faking Singapore as their country/city of origin.

The weird thing is that--unless you're selling under another ID--I don't see anything scam-worthy that you've sold in the past week.  Your hypothesis that these could be phishing attempts may have something to it, although I can't get that link you posted to work.

[femmefan1946]

If he can't pay it's his problem not yours.

If you thought it was an honest problem (do you allow shipping to Singapore? do you have a stated cost for shipping to Singapore?) you should tell him that you sympathize but he will have to work out the problem with his PP account.

If you think it is a potential scam (because you don't have specific shipping to Singapore, which he would have learned if he had actually tried to buy it, the prompt would be Contact Seller for Shipping Cost) then don't answer and Block his ID.

Scammers take advantage of the acknowledged honesty of Japanese, to fake shipping from there too.

[recped]

I haven't seen that specific one. I do get eBay phishing emails on a regular basis.

Forward to spoof@ebay.com

They do shut them down but of course it's whack-a-mole.

[brettjet38 · Accepted solution]

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/MEMBER-ALERT-Best-Offer-Scam-eBay-has-been-notified/td-p...

[brettjet38]

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/MEMBER-ALERT-Best-Offer-Scam-eBay-has-been-notified/td-p...

I was on the phone with 3 eBay reps, I was in multiple calls, this is a serious scam!

[brettjet38]

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/MEMBER-ALERT-Best-Offer-Scam-eBay-has-been-notified/td-p...

I was on the phone with 3 eBay reps, I was in multiple calls, this is a serious scam and the last rep a Scot agreed with me, eBay needs to make a general announcement.

[brettjet38]

This is a new scam, using eBays own internal Best Offer system to spread it, if you get an offer like this, contact eBay with a call it only took them 1 min to call me back and report it.

You can also accept the offer they make as I doubt they will pay for it anyway...

[ypdc_dennis]

The link in the "offer" is the clue that it is a SCAM of some type.

The first part of the link address before the slash (/) is the important part.

ebay.co.uk followed by a slash would take you to the eBay UK website.

But anything after "uk" in the first address section will send you elsewhere.

In this "offer", the last part of the main link section is .GA which stands for Georgia (the country), but the fake website location could be anywhere in the world. Definitely not safe to use.

Probably hunting for ebay accounts and passwords to steal. Then sell the stolen info to scammers.

I do hope eBay's Managed Payment makes changing a Seller's bank account difficult, and not easy to do with just a seller's password.

-..-

[patphotog]

Thank you all for the relevant info.

Phishing for username and password seems to be the correct answer.

I have decline those kind of offers 3 times already...users with brand new account (same day as the offer) from "Singapore" (sorry Singapore...).

Be careful all!!!

[tyler@ebay]

Hi everyone - 

I know I'm late to this party (what a fun 2 weeks December has been!), but wanted to let you know I have escalated your reports and examples to the teams in charge of Best Offers to make sure they are aware of this new trend. 

I can't promise I will hear anything back - but if I do I will make sure to let you know. 

For now - please don't click those links!