I get spoof emails nearly every day from people pretending to be eBay and asking you to log into your account so they can get hold of your username and password.

I always forward these to spoof@ebay.co.uk which is their recommendation so that they can check whether the email is from them and presumably take action against the people sending these things out.

Recently I received an email from them which was from a seller using the contact a buyer system to tell me he had posted what I had ordered. I didn’t pay too much attention to it at the time and forwarded it to spoof@ebay.com.

Imagine my surprise though when I got an email back from eBay telling me

“Thank you for sending us the email you received. We can confirm that it did NOT originate from eBay or PayPal. The email you received was a “spoof” email.

Please ignore the email and delete it from your email account immediately. Do not reply to it, and do not click on any links or buttons in the email.

What is spoof?

Spoof emails are made to appear as though they have originated from a trustworthy source such as eBay, PayPal, banks or other companies. They aim to obtain sensitive data such as passwords or financial information for fraudulent use. Spoofing is also known as “phishing”, and it is an attempt to steal your identity.”

Are eBay unable to detect messages that actually did send or is this an automated response to anything you send to them?

Posted in Internet, Uncategorized