OT: Ebay's email regarding fradulent practices; concerns

It's phony. I got one the other day supposedly from CitiBank, and have gotten others supposedly from eBay and Paypal. I hear that they're also forging Best Buy and Yahoo, too. Best advice I've heard is don't click on a link in an email that appears commercial. MSIE has a security glitch that allows them to even forge the location bar on the top of your browser, so you can't rely on that. If you want to go to a site, any site, use your bookmark or google the URL. Identity theft is a huge business. I wonder if the crooks put as much time and effort into something legit, if they wouldn't make money and never have to go to prison. No adrenaline rush, though.

Thanks so much, Joanne. I was beginning to wonder. I knew that if they sent it to a bogus Ebay email address, it had to be phony. The URL wasn't bad; just the bogus address. Thanks also for the tips on Best Buy, Yahoo, Paypal and MSIE.

I got one about 2 weeks ago. I didn't think about it too much until you mentioned it. I didn't do anything except delete the e-mail since I do not have an account from ebay anyway.

Another > > Beth Pierce wrote:

MicroSoft will NEVER email you about updates or security patches. They rely on you using the update on your start menu, or just going to their site. So all of these messages supposedly from M$ are phony and loaded with a viral payload.

It is essential to have a good up-to-date anti-virus program running on your computer at all times. Norton and McAfee are good, but there is also a good free one called AVG that you can get at

If you have broadband - cable, satellite, or DSL, you also need a firewall. Zone Alarm has a free version that does the job.

To elaborate on this: There is also a fake MS patch going around that looks like it came from them, but is actually one of those Trojans that turns your computer into a spam server.

It's good that you reported the e-mail to eBay because so many people blindly click and fill in their info in response and have their accounts hacked or robbed blind.

This is the email address you're supposed to send such things to: snipped-for-privacy@ebay.com - if you sent it anywhere else, it will just bounce back to you and they won't read it.

Thanks! I sent it there, per their instructions.

I keep getting messages from Micro Soft, that automatically bring up the "save" site, where they all say something to the effect "Norton Anti Virus delete". I don't seem to be able to avoid them, can't block them because they change so often, so I just have to be VERY careful. PITB Sharon

About once a week I get an e-mail from somebody in some other country (the country changes) who claim to be bank officials, and want to badly to make me rich, if only I give them my bank account number. I can't block them fast enough. Sharon

------------------------ "Old quilters never die, they just go to pieces."

Ah, yes. Mme. Sese Seko and compatriots. See

Oh, that's good :-)

It's no wonder the Nigerian economy's in so much trouble: about 95% of the GNP seems to be tied up in various bank accounts, waiting only for me to set it free.

Sally

Nothing from Nigeria?

I got the Paypal one again yesterday - it's very naughty and looks pretty genuine.

Trish

I had one of those too ! I couldn't work out what country it came from. I take it was from Russia as the address ended in .ru. It was written in another language which looked like maybe Dutch?

Dee in Oz

------------------------ "Old quilters never die, they just go to pieces."

There was one from eBay in my email the other day. Oddly, I don't have an eBay account. But I clicked on the link, just to see what it was, and there it was, a request for my password, date of birth, and some other, equally sensitive information.

Did you know that with just your name, date of birth, and zip code, a crook can do all sorts of bad things to your identity? I never give that stuff out any more unless it's an absolute necessity, especially online.

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

You might want to consider a spam filter such as the freeware product K9 . I get between 100 and 300 spams per day and K9 is about 99.3% accurate in separating the gold from the dross...

Taffy

Erm... You might want to consider a new email address - LOL.

Curiously, the overwhelming bulk of the spam comes not to the email address I use on Usenet, but to my business email address, which has only been provided when I purchase products. Taffy