RE: eBay Scam
Reading through the thread here and following to the news article and radio
interview leads me to post this:
First, the article first says he 'wired' the money but then says he sent it
through a fake 'safe payment' (escrow?) page setup by the scammer.  eBay has
a big warning, in several places, against ever wiring money to anyone or
setting up a direct funds transfer.  They claim the victim was an
experienced eBayer, should have known better.
Second, the scammer placed an ad using a legitimate account that he/she had
account name and password for.  The only way the scammer had the password is
carelessness or stupidity on the part of the legitimate owner of that
account. That's not eBays fault.
Someone mentioned getting phishing email making demands regarding eBay last
week and wondered how they got his email address.  They got it right here or
any other forum you are on or in a million other ways that can be used to
intercept or 'harvest' email addresses.  The phishing email is sent out to
any address they can get.  They don't know whether or not you even have an
eBay or PayPal account, just hope to hit some people that do and are naive
enough to follow the link provided and then fill in account numbers,
passwords, etc. eBay make it very clear (and repeats the message over and
over again) that any legit communication from eBay will contain your full
real name in the message.  That will be missing from the phishing emails.
Why wasn't the phishing email sent to eBay so that they could shut down that
source?  It's really simple to hit the Forward button and send the fake
stuff to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com.  ou will then get a confirming
message back from them.
And the allegation that eBay is trying to 'hide' the problem.  What is that
based on?  Because eBay doesn't kow tow to the demands of a reporter?  Or
the police claiming that they get 'no cooperation'?  Every police department
has the staff and the tools to chase down virtually any communication on the
Internet, they don't need eBays help on something like that.  And if the
police have a good case they will have no problem getting a court order to
get any further info they need from eBay.  eBay would be totally
irresponsible to give out information to anyone that simply asked for it,
the legal process is required to protect all involved including thosee of us
here.
Now getting off my soap box, need to package a couple of items I just sold
on eBay and get them into the mail....