Police warn of rising Ebay fraud

EDMONTON - Police in Alberta are joining forces with their colleagues in the U.S. to fight crime that knows no borders: Internet and telephone fraud.

Alberta will be joining B.C., Ontario and Quebec, which already have agreements with U.S. authorities to share information.

The main focus will be call-centre fraud in Canada targeting Americans, but police are hoping the co-operation will allow joint investigations in Internet crime.

One area of Internet crime that is growing is fraud involving the online auction site Ebay.

Users of the site sometimes post an item for auction, receive payment, but never send the goods.

Ebay customers also sometimes receive e-mail messages that appear to be from Ebay, but are actually from someone trying to rip them off.

They're called "spoof" e-mails. They look authentic, carrying the Ebay logo and an Ebay return address.

They threaten to cancel customers' accounts if they don't reply with their account information.

If a costumer does, the person who sent the e-mail can use the account to place bids and charge the customer's credit card.

Representatives from Ebay say spoofed e-mails are a serious problem and undermine costumers' confidence in doing business online.

Internet security advisers warn never to give out log-in information over e-mail.

I have reported over 40 hijacked eBay accounts to eBay's Safe Harbor fraud detail in the past two weeks.

These hijacked accounts have been popping up offering Macintosh G5 dual processor computers for sale with immediate shipping. The Dual G5 will not even ship from Apple until mid-October! The same sellers will also be offering the hard to get Nikon digital SLR, Super-high speed PCs,

Each of the sellers had been previously selling something totally non-computer related... often the "sellers" have high positive eBay ratings from their previous activities.

The computers are offered with "Buy It Now!" prices that are less than half the retail value and include many accessories that increase the "deal" the buyer will get... if anything is ever shipped. Some of these scam deals are offering over $5000 of new equipment for the bargain price of $1900... one scammer offers the Dual G5 ($2995),8 gigabytes of APPLE brand Ram ($4800), a 20" Cinema Display ($1299), a 23" Cinema Display ($2499), Fiber Channel PCI card ($500), 40 Gig iPad ($400), Klipsch ProMedia Surround Sound 5.1 speaker set ($350), Bluetooth, AirPort Extreme base station, card, and modem ($500)... a total of over $8500 for a bargain "buy it now" price of $2299... and he would throw in shipping anywhere for free! This seller, before offering several of these impossible packages, was selling used clothing and had a 148 100% positive eBay rating.

One scammer claims that if the auction goes over $450, he will stop the auction immediately and ship the computer to the first person over that amount... but "it will take a longer time for shipping and delivery because I am a drop shipper, which allows me to sell these computers at such a deep discount."

Another suggest the buyer buy TWO!

Often, the buyer seems to have moved to another continent... people who had selling used CDs and books from New Jersey is suddenly offering large numbers of "too-good-to-be-true" impossible to get computers from the Netherlands... or the UK... of Australia. Sometimes the item location is listed as New York, but the price is listed in Australian dollars.

All of these listings were removed by eBay after I notified them of the fraudulent nature... but it doesn't stop them... identical ads appear just hours later with another eBayer's hijacked account.

I have one problem with eBay's commitment to fighting this type of fraud. They make it extremely HARD to find a way to report suspicious listings to them... it is buried under many layers of webpages and options. It took me over an hour to find it the first time I saw one of these scam offerings.

Also, a general warning to everyone: NO reputable business will ever, ever, EVER send you an email or a demand that you "click here" to reverify your information (nor will they call you and make such demands). It just doesn't happen. If you ever get such an email (or phone call), IT IS A FRAUD.

Yes, that happened to me. My account was hijacked and an auction posted in my name. I found out when I received an automated email from eBay saying I owed a fee for posting an auction for an extremely expensive camera. (The auction never completed, so at least I didn't have a buyer expecting me to ship them something.) They quickly investigated and found that yes, my account had been hijacked. I changed my password, and everything's been okay since. Now I know better. Sheesh.

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