Ebay is starting to make me very concerned about security lately...

[leaky-bucket-labs]

I keep seeing these listings almost every single day, sometimes more than once a day where sellers are listing high end radio and audio gear, high end jewelry and such on accounts with 1000's of positive sales till this point.

Its like there is a problem with ebay right now that they cant control and has been going on for many weeks.

They use the same images and items in the scam listing so at least now its easier to see but I'm worried about my own account after seeing this non-stop.

The listings all have the same starting price but use multiple accounts to mirror the listings.

Whats going on?

The items are shown here with $2.40 starting bid

I also feel fatigued reporting these over and over with no end in sight.

[azh-71]

Running scams on hacked accounts is a common thing.  These thins pop-up and quickly get taken down all the time.

[oneblindcat]

I know the feeling, I'm getting burned out on reporting them, too. If people wouldn't fall for these scams, they wouldn't keep appearing.

[slippinjimmy]

The security breach that lets this happen is sloppy users who allow their accounts to be hijacked.

Once you steal the password of a seller account you can dump as many listings as you want and with an ultra cheap starting price you don't even need to find a seller with really high limits.

Your concern about your own account is warranted, protect it by not allowing yourself to get phished or attacked with malware.

Those listings haven't been up long, they will probably vaporize by tomorrow.

[hurryagain]

@leaky-bucket-labs 

Hah!  You have come across the $2.40 scammer.  They actually named this hacker...they keep popping up monthly and I don't know how they do it but they can get up to 10K listings in a few short days...it is incredible.

I reported several of their listings last month and it took less than a day for that round of junk to be taken down...

...the one thing that makes me wonder about this hacker is that he lists with auctions...if you want to scam the system, you would do them all in BIN so that people would be purchasing them and the hacker would be getting the $$$ but he gets stopped & his auctions taken down so I don't know if he ever gets any money which makes me wonder if he is just screwing with eBay...maybe a former disgruntled employee...???

If so, it is a bit humorous b/c if it isn't that and he is really trying to get the money & run then he is the dumbest scammer I know!

I really think he is just messing around...bored or something...playing the hide & seek/catch me if you can game....all of his auctions start at $2.40 every time so that is all we need to watch for but it's a bit of a chore.

[leaky-bucket-labs]

well once people start seeing this **bleep** they want to steer clear of ebay.

It also makes it harder for us with captchas and annoying security prompts and it slides legit items too.

I feel bad for ebay but they are almost letting this happen.

The whole site is a disaster with miscategorized items and pages of unrelated junk, multiple same listings and on and on.

I could be there all day reporting stuff but most times they dont care anyway so its a waste of time.

I used to love browsing for items but now it just ticks me off and disgusts me.

Its really a shame

[reallynicestamps]

One of my items was purchased by a fairly smooth  scammer two days ago.

I was pleased to get a very polite email from eBay today, explaining that the scammer had been bounced, that my FVF had been refunded, and that I could if I wished relist the item.

I had done nothing to notify eBay. I hadn't even sent my second invoice yet.

With all the moaning and whining about scams, it was a revelation to learn that eBay really did have my back.

This started as the "I can't get PP to work" scam and moved to "I'm paying the US shipping fee, just ignore that my address is in Morocco" fiddle. 

Mama wasn't born on  a turnip truck.

[oneblindcat]

I know what you mean. I love cruising through camera brands looking for the weird and wonderful. I just scored a big box full of dealers' samples that I never would have thought to search for. This just takes the fun out of things.

[releasethekraken_1]

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@oneblindcat wrote:

I know the feeling, I'm getting burned out on reporting them, too. If people wouldn't fall for these scams, they wouldn't keep appearing.

---

You only have to report one of them.

But I've even stopped doing that, because eBay should have figured out how to spot these without our help.

We call him "$2.40 guy", but now he's setting other prices. I saw a set for $32 this morning, and I think $1.11 a couple days ago. 

[luckythewinner]

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@leaky-bucket-labs wrote:

I'm worried about my own account after seeing this non-stop.

---

Experts estimate that 90% of cyber security incidents involved a phishing component, where a user is tricked into giving up account information. 

If you ...

• maintain a suitably complex password;
• use two-factor authentication;
• do not use the same password for different accounts;
• never click images or links in emails, and never cut-and-paste URLs from emails;
• always log in using a bookmark that you created or an address that you typed;

... then the odds are dramatically high that your account on eBay will remain secure. 

[eburtonlab]

@hurryagain 

...the one thing that makes me wonder about this hacker is that he lists with auctions...if you want to scam the system, you would do them all in BIN so that people would be purchasing them and the hacker would be getting the $$$ but he gets stopped & his auctions taken down so I don't know if he ever gets any money which makes me wonder if he is just screwing with eBay...maybe a former disgruntled employee...???

eBay and PayPal have procedures to limit the amount of money that can flow into or out of new or dormant accounts quickly; there are ways to get around the limits, but these take time and effort. There are scams that are done that way, but those have different characteristics, and take longer to set up.

Listing items as inexpensive auctions allows the scammer to list hundreds or thousands of listings even on accounts with very low limits. The scammer does not need to have access to a PayPal account at all. The scammer knows that eBay will find and remove the listings quickly, but counts on unwary buyers sending contact info via email. The scammer can contact each victim by email -- that is where the real scam takes place, not on eBay -- even after eBay has removed the listing and closed the account.

[slippinjimmy]

I checked on these Saturday midday, as I predicted they are all gone.

They will pop up again because it's so easy to phish eBay sellers which is the absolutely necessary thing to make these particular scams work.

Managed Payments is going to put a real dent in the "fake PayPal notices" scams so as eBay closes the door for older scams the scammers will have to move on to other ways most notably taking transactions off eBay.

[leaky-bucket-labs]

Never ends...

[leaky-bucket-labs]

Guess who's back?

Looks like screwing us with captchas did nothing to the criminals.

good job ebay!!

[reallynicestamps]

@slippinjimmy 

I certainly hope so.

There is a higher level of difficulty to signing up for Managed Payments than for Paypal. High enough that I had difficulties on three of my four selling accounts.

If that translates into fewer scam accounts, whether new or hijacked, that would be (almost) worth the two months* of frustration.

*When we did get all straightened out, all the Held funds were promptly transferred. So there's that.