eBay iPhone fraud: sellers beware (Update 3)

Well the auction ended. At first I was happy, I got more than the iPhones were going for. Currently iPhones are not sold out at all the Apple stores yet (and the waiting time at the online Apple store is 2-4 weeks), so people can just walk into a local store and buy one at cost. Consequently, eBay prices have been low the past 24 hours, but I’d gotten more.

But something was fishy.

The red flags: I had a reserve and the auction ended right at the reserve. I looked closer. The second place bid was in the range of what iPhones were selling for today, which was way below my reserve which I had set back when they were selling for more about 36 hours ago. That meant the winning bidder just bid WAY above the going price. Red flag number one. Then I got the email from eBay that I had sold an item. The email address of the winning bidder looked like a spam email, a senseless 15-long jumble of random letters and numbers @ jetable.net. That’s #2. I checked out jetable.net, and it’s an email REDIRECT service. That was red flag #3. I looked at the bidder’s account. Feedback was low, only 5. I looked closer and the last transaction was 2 1/2 years ago in January 2005. That was red flag #4. Damn. Well I’m nervous at this point, but figure if the PayPal address is truly confirmed, then who knows. I post a question to the eBay answer center and think. I’ve received no payment yet.

As I’m fretting with my capitalistic greed, I receive a new email.
It was from eBay’s security department and here’s what it said:

“TKO NOTICE: eBay Listing(s) Removed”
“The results of the following listing(s) have been cancelled due to bidding activity that took place without the account owner’s authorization:” We have cancelled the listing(s) to maintain the integrity of the eBay site, your account, and the bidder’s account that was accessed. We are working to restore the bidding account to its rightful owner, and we are working with the account owner to prevent any additional unauthorized activity. Since the account owner did not initiate these bids, all fees resulting from the listings in question will be credited to your account within 7 days.
Whew. I don’t know if eBay is just that on top of it, or an admin saw my post to the answer center PayPal forum. Just after that, in a browser tab I had opened earlier, I noticed red flag #5: The buyer had a sudden spurt of recent bidding activity. No less than 62 single bids, each on different item numbers, and ALL items in the unactivated cell phone category (read: iPhone).At any rate, thanks eBay. Buyer beware, Seller beware. It’s the wild west out there with this iPhone hype & frenzy, shock & awe.
–SDEDIT: Sigh, you know you’re a dork when you keep mixing up BBCode and HTML. Sigh again. Blog on.

UPDATE: according to Scambusters, eBay has 2000 security staff examining iPhone auctions for scams.

UPDATE 2: They are still trying to scam me on the same auction by directly contacting me via email. Obviously they got my email from the original “you’ve won this auction” notice.

I received this phishy email from a spoofed aw-confirm@ebay.co.uk (Why UK? Who knows):
eBay sent this message on behalf of [hijacked account]:
FPA NOTICE USER ACCOUNT RESTORED!!!
“Dear Customer ,

We’re writing to let you know that eBay has restored the buyer’s account,you are now obliged to make shipment for the item,because we received a message from paypal that the payment has been made and the money has been deducted from the buyer’s account.

You are mandated to ship this item to the given address by the buyer and send the shipment tracking number to us or paypal for proper verification so that your account can be credited into your account instantly.

This is a new policy by eBay and paypal to put an end to the increasing online scam involving paypal and eBay and to make eBay safe buying and selling online community, so also the item should not be relist again and be shipped to the buyer instantly for your account creditation.

The money paid by the buyer has been deducted from the buyer’s account and will only reflect in your paypal account as soon as we have the required information (Shipment tracking number).

Ohhhh. PayPal already has the money, but I don’t actually get to take it until I ship you the iPhone. And I should do this even though the hijacked account is still suspended and the auction number is completely invalid. Oh, and even though PayPal has no record of such payment. Let me think.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

UPDATE 3:
I received a spoof phish from PayPal, claiming payment on my auction.
The payment is from “Sharon ____”, the first name of the real person whose eBay account has been hijacked, and her address is listed in my eBay email as in California. However the PayPal email requests shipment of the iPhone to a very specific address in Nigeria, and not to Sharon, but to a gentleman with a very Nigerian name.

This entry was posted on July 1, 2007 at 10:38 am and is filed under iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.