Ebay Second Chance Offer Scam | Fake Listings of Expensive Things

Now, on with the newest angle. Read and be amazed, its a new version of an old type of robbery.

BEHOLD! The new , Ebay Second Chance Offer Scam

PAY Close attention, on a scale of deception this is sure to be a classic. First a little background.

Several years ago after problems with crooks and scam artists interfering with transactions, Ebay changed it's policy about revealing who competing bidders are on Auction item. Now if you're a seller you can still see who all of the bidders are by user name and their feedback score but nothing else.

If you are browsing Ebay and look at the activity on an Auction listing you can see the other bidder's feedback score by opening the bidder activity/total number and you can see a couple odd letters and DOTS, it looks something like this "k***l" the visible letters do not correspond to that users name...only the feedback number is accurate, which doesn't tell you much considering Ebay has over 100 Million registered users...

A New Ebay Second Chance Offer Scam, But How?

Part One, The Set up

A few days ago we sold a Chinese vase in an Ebay auction for $14,500. The buyer was fine and made arrangements within a couple days to pay for it. No problem.

A few days later I got an unexpected call from one of the under-bidders on the vase. He wanted to thank me for the terrific Second Chance Offer I had sent him for it. This fellow had bought from me before and knew how to reach me directly. The Second Chance Offer he got was for exactly $11,500, which was also exactly his last bid on the Chinese vase..?

The problem was, I had sent no such offer.

He had in fact gotten a very convincing looking Second Chance Offer. It was identical to the ones you can send to under-bidders if the winning bidder backs out. The Email was addressed to him by user name, sent to his personal Email address, contained  his real name as well.  Amazingly it was also for exactly his highest last bid.

I asked him to forward to me the offer he had gotten "from Ebay" which he did immediately.

The offer came on Ebay Letterhead and looked very official. I have removed his my friends real name and contact information as noted in RED. I did leave in the CROOK'S real Email address...so feel free to start a pen pal friendship with him...

Here it is....Click on the official looking Ebay image below to enlarge it.

Pretty Slick  looking and it was a total SPOOF!

Part Two, The Close

My friend then replied to the sender of the phony Second Chance Offer agreeing to buy the vase form him...Cool huh...?  My friend explained he would be travelling and would be able to finish the deal in a few weeks...

What he got back was a new twist, the hacker offered to send along the vase for his approval for a 5 Day Approval period and said that no money would change hands unless he was happy with it!

After reading the actual reply my friend had gotten, I realized what was being proposed. Bellow is a screen shot of the second Email.

Click on it to Enlarge fully. Read it carefully.....and you'll see what he was planning on doing.

_______________________________________

Did you figure it out?

The SCAM is, the phony "Seller" was proposing the buyer place his payment with the non-existent  Ebay Protection Plan.  Who would then HOLD the money as the intermediary to PROTECT both parties until they agree on the transaction. The PROBLEM is, Ebay has no such plan, and never has had one.

The "Seller" even goes as far to explaining it was something he never knew existed until recently himself!

In the Email the bogus "Seller" says HE will set up the deal with Ebay to handle the deal so they can handle the money. Presumably what would happen next is another Official looking Email with a Payment Link to a none-existent Ebay Protection Plan Account and from there the money would vanish, POOF!

The miscreant "Seller" in this case goes all out telling the buyer he would ONLY go ahead with Ebay's Protection Plan serving as the intermediary. He even concocts some story about being away for his anniversary with a feigned attempt at sounding  British.

I reported this to Ebay immediately and they confirmed it was all part of a very sophisticated  SPOOF to steal $11,500...

A Troubling Problem For Ebay

After speaking with Ebay's Safety and Security people they were at a loss to understand how it was done, or they just didn't want to tell me. The did tell me the information did not come from my own account after doing some checking on login data. I did of course change my Password etc just to be safe anyway.

Some how apparently hackers have found a way to get an under-bidder's USER NAME, FULL REAL NAME, EBAY BID HISTORY and EMAIL ADDRESS and send along a very convincing piece of Ebay Email...

The Lesson is...."Be Careful Out There!"

How to Protect Yourself, A few Steps You Can Take

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