[Phono-L] Re: Phishing e-mails from eBay

ClockworkHome at aol.com ClockworkHome at aol.com
Sat Feb 2 22:30:58 PST 2008


If you are getting more phishing now then somehow the phishing spammers may 
have gotten your email address.  You may need to change addresses if the 
problem is serious.
 
Phishing on eBay was very common when people, myself included, used an email 
address as a seller/buyer name.  Then eBay sent out a message asking those of 
us with who did this to get a new name which almost everyone did.  The 
phishing stopped for the most part.  Those of us who kept part of our email address 
continued to get a small amount of phishing emails.  eBay then sent out a 
second message stating we should not have any part of our email address as the 
seller/buyer name.  Once a new name with no part of my email address was used the 
number of phishes almost stopped.
 
I have to give some credit also to my provider AOL.  As these spams go out it 
only takes a couple of keystrokes by AOL members to block the delivery of 
phishing spams to all of the members.  Now the number of eBay phishing spams is 
only a couple a month and I have not had one for weeks.  It is one of the few 
good things AOL has ever done and really knocks down the spam rate.  The down 
side is that a single keystroke can block a list like this one from going to 
all AOL members.  I understand that it is a pain to get AOL then to allow 
further access by a list holder.
 
So, if you are selling gizmos and you have an email address of 
gizmo(a)aol.com with an eBay name of gizmoseller, then you have a good chance of being 
targeted by the minions out there trying to steal your accounts, identity, and 
money.
 
The absolute worst thing you can do is to hit the hypertext link as that 
tells the spammer you exist and at email address xxxxxxxx.  If your provider has a 
spam button for deleting the email then use it.  Second worst is hitting the 
button to have yourself removed as that too tells the spammed you exist.  
Reporting phishing to eBay seems to have no effect but PayPal takes them a bit 
more seriously and does go after them according to an article I read.  I have not 
had a PayPal spam in months.
 
Best Wishes,
 
Al
 



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