EXCLUSIVE: eBay warns of new fraud

eBay is warning customers to be wary of fraudsters using hijacked sellers' accounts to try to con them out of money by offering to sell goods such as laptops at knockdown prices outside of auctions.

silicon.com was alerted to the problem by a reader, Silvia Krivosikova, who contacted us after being relieved of £500 by the scam.

The fraudsters take over legitimate eBay user accounts with details obtained through the 'phishing' spam emails that take recipients to a fake eBay page and ask them to update their account details.

They then join live auctions for items such as laptops and contact the bidders direct by email offering the same item at a lower price if they do the transaction direct and outside of the eBay auction.

Krivosikova received the following email while bidding for a laptop on eBay: "I saw you are interested at the Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100 Notebook and I have one to a very good price:500GBP included shipping tax and the insurance. If you really are interested I wait your mail. Thank you for your time."

Of course, people familiar with the scam will know that once the payment is banked the laptop never arrives. The problem for customers who do fall for the scam is that there is precious little they are able to do to get their money back or catch the perpetrators.

eBay said in a statement: "Unfortunately, because the item was purchased outside of eBay.co.uk, the user is not eligible for eBay’s Buyer Protection Programme. eBay.co.uk often reminds its users of the risks of purchasing items that are not sold via the site. This is also a breach of our user agreement."

Krivosikova has traced the IP address used by the fraudster when contacting her back to the Netherlands and contacted her local police in Sussex, but was told that as the payment was banked in Spain it was outside of their jurisdiction.

The criminal or criminals behind the scam have clearly gone to some lengths to covert heir tracks and evade detection and capture.

silicon.com was contacted by Krivosikova after six emails to eBay's US customer service team reporting the problem and asking for advice went unanswered for over two days, and eBay said it is now looking into the cause of that delay.

eBay also said that along with many other internet companies it is targeted by people wanting to perpetrate fraud online, but claimed that less than a hundredth of one per cent of listed items result in a confirmed case of fraud.