[meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!

From: Charles Viau <cviau_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun Oct 8 23:30:44 2006
Message-ID: <20061009033040.94A9E26564_at_ns4.beld.net>

Hi List,
Strongly agree with Mark. The "Services" (Ebay, Paypal, etc..) have a strict
hands off approach to this kind of fraud. They are protecting their
interests and provide nothing but a bunch of lip service against these
scams, with emphasis as to what "You should do" to protect yourself against
being ripped off. I run a systems security business in MA., and I can tell
you first hand that you will never get any satisfaction from pursuing the
service providers when you get scammed. The best protection is education and
attention to the age old advise that starts with: "If it appears to good to
be true....".

This kind of stuff has been going on ever since print could be published.
Now, with identity protected sourcing in a ubiquitous electronic sales
media, there is no one to protect you except yourself.

Buying on the internet is a gamble. A calculated risk assessment should be
done any time you want to deal there.

There is one good piece of buying advice, if you have the option.
If your seller accepts an American Express card, then by all means use that
over anything else. They protect you, the buyer, more than any other
financial organization out there, even if your card gets compromized. (In
fact, if you use AMEX on PAYPAL and have an issue, go directly to AMEX and
forget the Paypal runaround.)

CharlyV

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Mark
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 5:54 PM
To: Sterling K. Webb
Cc: meteoritelist
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!

Hi Sterling
The fact that they stop auctions and warn off sellers and can maneuver
(freeze) paypal accounts doesn't mean they go after the frauds. They are
just controlling what they can cheaply do with a phone call or email.
I'm sorry to inform you I was called by a detective who got scant little
help from ebay on building a case against a formerly good and then went bad
seller. The case was opened by a ripped off buyer, not ebay, and was started

in Montana and not So Cal where the seller had been.

The fact is they don't hurt themselves and the bottom line in criminal
activities is the bottom line. They try to help you before it becomes a
problem, then they fall back on all the policies they have to stop spending
any money themselves.

Mark Ferguson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb_at_sbcglobal.net>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Cc: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse_at_charter.net>; "Mark" <mafer@imagineopals.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!


> Hi,
>
> As much as it pains me to defend the eBay eMpire,
> they do DO something about crooks who think eBay is
> deaf, dumb, and blind.
> Some months ago, I bought a used DVD from an
> eBay seller with thousands of feedbacks, 99+% positive,
> paid with PayPal. Got the usual post-sale messages,
> including a note from the seller that he would ship
> within two days. About three days later, I got an
> unsolicited email from PayPal telling me I should
> immediately go to their site and make a claim against
> the seller for the return of my money. No reason
> given. A check of eBay showed that seller had utterly
> vanished; no record of them. I filed the claim, and
> in two weeks, the money was back in my PayPal
> account.
> I have no idea what happened or why. I just know
> that eBay/PayPal came out of the blue and remedied
> a problem I didn't even know existed. I hadn't even
> expected the DVD to arrive yet. My guess is that he
> was selling stolen merchandise.
>
> Second example:
> One evening, very late at night, I was sifting
> through eBay Search and came across an expensive
> electronic item at a very, very low price that intrigued
> me enough to click on it. It was a just-started (15
> minutes previously) one-day auction. Since the obvious
> sales strategy for such an item would be a longer
> auction, I clicked on View Seller's Other Items and
> found 110 one-day auctions for items with retail costs
> from $4000 and up, all to be shipped by Free FedEx
> 2-Day Air from a named East Coast US city and
> all starting at $79. Most of them would have cost
> more than that to ship.
> I looked at the seller's feedback history. Years
> long, 100% positive. The problem was that all he'd
> ever sold was used children's clothing and he was
> located in the Isle of Lewis, in the Hebrides, off the
> west coast of Scotland. There was, to put it mildly,
> a mis-match there.
> I deduced a hijacked identity by somebody who
> was fencing a truckload of high-end electronics, possibly
> also hijacked. Several items were photographed sitting
> on the tailgate of a big truck. I emailed the seller (to the
> off-eBay email address he gave in the auctions) with
> a naive querry about one of the auctions: is this item
> new? used? refurbished? In five minutes, I got a reply
> from the seller offering a Buy It Now price of $1000,
> to be paid as soon as possible by Western Union
> money order.
> I was already typing up all these findings as I
> made them, as a text file, so I immediately sent it
> to whatever generic address on eBay that says to
> report possible fraud. I doubted that they'd get to it
> that night; maybe in the morning...
> About 10 minutes later I went back to look at that
> auction again. It was closed. All those auctions were
> closed, and the rest of the page was filled with various
> warnings saying NOT to communicate with a seller
> outside of the eBay system, NOT to use Western
> Union or other instant pay systems to pay for items,
> especially when solicited to do so by the seller.
> In all, these 110 auctions lasted for less than
> an hour on eBay. Was I the first to notice them?
> Or the 100th? Had eBay already found them? For
> whatever reason, eBay's performance was excellent.
> Their response time was measured in minutes, not
> hours, not days.
>
> HOWEVER, they do not talk about what they
> do! Or how they do it, or even admit that they do
> anything beyond a bland statement that they make
> all possible effort. The often-expressed sentiment
> that they don't care and don't do anything is just
> not correct. They just don't brag about it.
>
> Sorry for the long stories, but it doesn't mean
> much without all those details!
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> -----------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark" <mafer_at_imagineopals.com>
> To: <cynapse_at_charter.net>
> Cc: "meteoritelist" <Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 2:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!
>
>
>> Hi Darren and List
>>
>> If you'll read ebay's page on spoof mail you'll note that ebay and paypal

>> will never put a link for you to use within the msg where you have to log

>> in.
>> They will tell you to go to the site and sign in instead. This is what
>> makes it different and easy to spot.
>>
>> Delete or report, either way, you don't fall for them.
>> I do agree that ebay isn't doing anything that will cost them money or
>> lawyer time. Best you can hope for is that they turn over the links to an

>> agency which is already paid to chase criminals, which I doubt they do
>> either.
>>
>> Mark Ferguson
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse_at_charter.net>
>> To: "Dave Freeman mjwy" <dfreeman_at_fascination.com>
>> Cc: <Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
>> Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 2:52 PM
>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 08 Oct 2006 11:41:57 -0600, you wrote:
>>
>>>Dear List;
>>>I have been studying issues first hand on hacking via the Internet
>>>Explorer versus other browsers...Firefox is much more secure and less
>>>hackable. Every common crook has figured out how to hack into IE thus
>>>making it much easier for them to open the door to your accounts. I
>>>rarely use IE, use Navigator for my emails and weather/news, and use
>>>Firefox for my eBay and paypal accounts.
>>
>> No web browser is safe from scams that rely on user error. These type
>> e-mails
>> give you a link to a look-alike site and get you to enter your username
>> and
>> password yourself. The solution to this problem (which all e-mail safety

>> tips
>> have been screaming at everyone for years) is NEVER click on a link sent
>> to you
>> from anyone claiming to be an on-line service. NEVER. If you have a
>> legitimate
>> issue from whatever the service is, you will be able to resolve it by
>> going to
>> the home page of the web site and then logging on to your account from
>> there.
>> Again, NEVER follow links sent in unexpected e-mails no matter how good
>> it
>> looks.
>>
>> Also, another good idea is to not have any type of HTML or any other type

>> of
>> executible elements active in your e-mail client. I use plain text
>> e-mail and
>> refuse to switch to anything else. Which means that I am at exactly zero

>> risk
>> from any type of virus, worm, HTML trick, Active-X doohickey, or anything

>> else
>> sent by e-mail that is the source of most virus problems (I say "most"
>> without
>> checking the actual statistics on this, so "most" may mean "not most").
>> When I
>> get an e-mail (from a company or an individual) that is encoded in HTML I

>> delete
>> it unread.
>> ______________________________________________
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>>
>
>

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Received on Sun 08 Oct 2006 11:30:44 PM PDT