Spamming and Phishing at eBAY

If you happen to sell at ebay.ph, you know what I will talk about. If not, read on still, it might help you save millions of peso doing so. That is, if you have a million or so.

A new study confirms that users of the popular eBay auction site (together its Paypal) remains the most popular targets of phishing scams. Accounting over 75% phishing e-mails sent. That’s over three quarters of global phishing, all targeted to the users of eBay and its PayPal subsidiary.

Actually, study was not even warranted, as I know this fact. Experiencing this first hand. My inbox is loaded up with African (Nigerian) scammers every morning.

Phishing schemes are fraudulent e-mails that attempt to gather personal information including credit card numbers, account numbers and passwords in the name of ripping off users. Phishers use e-mails that offer links to sites that in turn seek to deliver worm or Trojan viruses in the name of breaking into computers and walah, personal information all gathered up.

I remember, during my early years of online activity, I almost fell for these stuff. But mind you, even savvy users can still fall to these traps. What with realistic emails, links and fraudulent websites that look like real ones. No one is safe as attacks are becoming more sophisticated involving cross-site scripting and other advanced and malicious techniques.

eBay has built-in mechanisms to handle these emails and phishers, but they could only do certain things. In the end, the frustrating task of sorting out what's real and not, the task of deleting emails will still be done by the user.

To further aggravate things, I am now receiving an avalanche of spamming from Chinese Suppliers. Offering all sort of stuff, from bags to apparel, from underwear to specialized condoms, electronics and computers.

Who says, selling (and earning) in eBay is easy?