I'm not a huge eBay user, but do a bit.
This may be common knowledge, but I'm not sure I've heard of it and it hasn't happened to me before.
I got the following email:
Now, like I said, I don't do a ton of ebay, so I'd recognize all of the names of the people I've sent to in the past 6 months.
I am also super-cautious and ONLY will send items out by trackable mail. I send quickly and always send an e-mail to the buyer giving him the tracking number that day. I also often take a picture of the package in the hands of the USPS worker! I never want to be blamed for not shipping.
So when I got the e-mail, it seemed suspicious. The message "I'm still waiting the package to arrive. What happened? Please mailme ASAP or I will report you to ebay." seemed suspicious. Too vague, didn't specify the item, and seemed a bit too threatening (although to their credit, it is relatively typo free and not written in the typical "I have not prcoured the parcelpost which I was to receive, dutifully yours, etc." Nigerian fraud style).
And I didn't recognize the name.
I looked up the supposed sender, "rivernick," that seemed suspicious, too. Registered years ago, with only a couple of transactions, none recent. I.e., a seemingly dormant account.
If you can read my "screen shot," it says that you can't respond directly to the e-mail, you have to go through ebay by clicking on the button. ("eBay sent this message on behalf of an eBay member via My Messages. Responses sent using email will not reach the eBay member. Use the Respond Now button below to respond to this message.")
When you click on the button, you get sent to a site that looks like the ebay login site. Except if you see the title of the site, it has the word "redirect" in it. That doesn't seem right.
And normally when I log onto eBay from my computer, I don't have to type in that info (cookies remembers it??).
I assume that if you type your info in, they now have your name and login, and can run all kinds of fake auctions.
I wonder how eBay is going to do in the long term. It seems like it will eventually collapse under the weight of fraud. I'd imagine that many, if not most, people would fall for the scheme like this one. For instance, I know my mother or father would, if they used eBay, and they are reasonably smart, careful people.
I bet there is a ton of ebay fraud that happens that ebay makes a big effort to keep quiet.