Heads up: Phishing Attempt

[mok-9579]

Hi Folks, Thought I'd share something that happened this morning.  The gist of it is that somebody sent a phishing text to me.  This one had enough of a twist that I thought it might be worth sharing.

It was actually TWO text messages.  The first one came in advising me of recent activity on my account.  A little later, a follow up text came in, telling me that EBAY had temporarily frozen my account, removed my security questions, and that I needed to reset my password and information.

BOTH of these emails looked like the real deal.  Both had links that would (in the first case) take me to my recent activity page, and the second was a link to change my password.  A couple of "tells" on this attempt.

1: there was no corresponding message from eBay in my mailbox.  According to EBay's chatbot, there should be.

2:  This is the really weird one.  So the texts hit about 3:45 central time.  I got up at about 6:30, read them.  Within the hour I'd done my morning wakeup routine, and logged on to EBay directly (NOT through) the suspect links) to find that everything was fine.  But by about 8, those two texts had disappeared from my text app.  I've NO idea how they did that, but thought I'd mention it.

In any case, that's what I wanted to share with y'all.  It's POSSIBLE this attempt was personal, and aimed at only me.  But I think it more likely that somebody purchased a list with emails (or whatever) on it, and may be doing this to all on that list.   

Bottom line, if you get a text like this do NOT click through using the text message.  Get OUT of texting, go to your regular web browser, and log in that way.  And again, the EBay chat bot says that EBay will ALSO send you an email if they text you.

Hope this helps

Mo

[evry1nositswindy]

You can forward them to spoof@ebay.com.  Thanks for the heads up, as this might help others.

[eburtonlab]

But by about 8, those two texts had disappeared from my text app. I've NO idea how they did that, but thought I'd mention it.

It is possible that others received similar phishing texts and complained; if enough users reported those messages as phishing attempts or spam, the texting service provider may have suspended the scammer's account and deleted the text messages to prevent additional users from falling for the scam.

[kensgiftshop]

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@mok-9579 wrote:

 It's POSSIBLE this attempt was personal, and aimed at only me.  But I think it more likely that somebody purchased a list with emails (or whatever) on it, and may be doing this to all on that list.   

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They don't target certain people.

When they send out those emails, they send them out by the thousands, hoping to catch a few.

One of my email accounts, I've had since the late 90s, I receive hundreds of emails like that a day.