emails from fake buyers

[cumos55]

Recently received two emails.   Neither was from a verified buyer.

The first things to do is .... Do Not Click on anything in the email... Check the email's correctness!!!

Clicking on anything in the email will give the sender a link to your information

The second email also asked me to verify  the email was received....  Do Not Respond to this request.. 

i said NO to this last question .....  However,  after some thought  ... perhaps... I should not have responded to this question

Both emails were requesting information about a purchase... or requesting a refund.

Confirming the emails were a fake...

(1) Did the emails arrive in eBay Messages?.....  This was the first check

Neither email arrived through eBay Messages... but they both knew my personal email address, and the emails were received there.

eBay Messages keeps a seller's information from being spread across the internet

(2)   Checking the eBay ID number...  and then user ID

This was done at the ....Advanced.... link to ... Advanced Search ...  to the right of the Blue Search TAB at the upper right corner +of a page

eBay ID numbers are 12 digits long.

Both Numbers were checked..... The first indication of a problem was that the first number was 10 digits long.   The second number was 9 digits long... Neither ID number was found on eBay 

For the first email the email address was check in my list of sales....  not found.

The second email..... no buyer ID confirmation....also buyer was asking for a confirmation of shipping to China.....  I ship only to Canada and the US.

(3)  Both emails were forwarded to .....  spoof@ebay.com.

Sellers must always be vigilant......  People are looking for ways to gain access to a seller's eBay account.... or even a seller's Paypal account....

The most important indicator of a problem is  that very first question...

Did the email come through eBay Messages?....... 

[momcqueen]

It has been ages since I was a target for attempts such as this. Like, years. I had a flush of them myself in 2012 after (I think) my email address was sold to/shared with (other) scammers by a seller who was less than scrupulous in their dealings with me. It was a bad transaction that beget more attempts at bad transactions. Thanks for the head's up.

[cumos55]

and then a strange email .....

About a cancelled transaction for a cell phone......valued at $1800 .....Something I do NOT sell

Buyer never paid!

[cumos55]

and now... two more emails... that did not come through eBay Messages.

All emails have been reported to eBay  as spoof emails.

[cumos55]

Each email was associated with a sender's email address.

It is not easy to confirm whether this address was "real"

After some searches for a site where there was no cost to find out if  the email address was real or not.

It was finally confirmed the email addresses were fake.

The sender wants the person that receives the email to click on the link... and with that the sender knows a lot about the person receiving the email.

Or this allows for the placement of some form of tracking device on a computer.   The person that sends the fake email   ... "has you"  and can track ... you.

This makes that https option  a valuable addition to everything on eBay

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Hackers are getting better, and better at what they do

and that means each of us has to be more and more vigilant.

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These discussions can be read by anyone on eBay......  Does my report of these emails  then allow someone to link my emails to my seller ID???