All of these suggestions are very good. I have received literally hundreds of phishing emails. First, if it is an offer to do anything with Funds, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK. Secondly, IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT ABSOLUTELY IS.
If they are using an "Ebay message" template, look above the first Yellow Banner. You should see your "Real-Entire Name" that you used to sign up to Ebay originally, and your "email address" BOTH.
99.9% of the scammers only have public info (I have my email address in my listings so members can contact me and know I'm real).
An example of the sentence at the top of real emails:
eBay sent this message to YOUR NAME HERE (patriot_coins_$_collectibles).
If it doesn't include both==It absolutely is a Phish or Scam. Be careful, some may contain both and still be a Phish or Scam.
================================================
And I believe the Ebay system works once you forward the phishing email to spoof@ebay.com, because I haven't seen repeat senders in the detailed sending/receiving headers of the emails. I'm sure with the thousands of emails regarding Phishing or Scamming Ebay/Paypal gets daily, their system is automated to handle these and forward to authorities. The system is automated because Ebay/Payal must receive thousands of these kinds of email daily. Don't be offended by the auto-reply.
If you are using Outlook or Outlook Express, you simply right click on the email message and choose Properties, then click the tab at the top and choose Details. The email details the sending IP addresses and user names, and reply IP's and user names. It looks like this:
Received: from imta03.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.29])
by alnrmxc21.comcast.net (alnrmxc21) with ESMTP
id <20071022113424a2100grlv4e>; Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:34:24 +0000
X-Originating-IP: [76.96.30.29]
Received: from mx9.smf.ebay.com ([66.135.209.206])
by IMTA03.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast
id 3PaQ1Y01j4Tk3vm0000000; Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:34:24 +0000
X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.0 c=1 a=pjdaNNIBAAAA:8 a=2BHjiyKPOlGVIOcvmvcA:9 a=UD967Wrxv5TopPdilkcA:7 a=UKMHoJYsfKeIPrg44C2I6uPPqT4A:4 a=si9q_4b84H0A:10 a=rPt6xJ-oxjAA:10 a=pwIP7ZobAAAA:8 a=NyfgJmMsAAAA:8 a=k4o1I3v0dgzT2yxcBo0A:9 a=_OEiDD53Tje1azJufPAA:7 a=QVggySFX6FmD3lzrCbDL-iFKo8oA:4 a=37WNUvjkh6kA:10
Received: from smfbat03.smf.ebay.com ([10.8.194.232])
by mx9.smf.ebay.com (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id l9MBYBok028336
for <patriotcoins@comcast.net>; Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:34:24 -0700
X-eBay-MailTracker: 10100.383.0.0
To: "patriotcoins@comcast.net" <patriotcoins@comcast.net>
From: store-newsletter@ebay.com
Subject: eBay Seller Email: Check out my Newly Listed Items
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 07 04:31:59 GMT-0700
Message-ID: <1594742.1193052719635.JavaMail.ebba@smfbat03>
Reply-To: store-newsletter@ebay.com
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.5.488 [269.15.5/1084]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=======AVGMAIL-471CAE2E112B======="
================================================
And Finally----BE CAREFUL ABOUT ACQUAINTANCES YOU MEET ON EBAY.
Someone took 6 months becoming my "friend" to set me up to sell some items for him (later to find out he never had the items). He purchased $300 worth of items from one of my auctions. We corresponded for several months. He sent me some real Cuban Cigars (about $150 worth) for free a month prior to him activating his scam.
Later he said his Ebay/Paypal account was on temporary hold and asked me if I could sell some of the NGC Certified MS70/69 $50 Buffalo Gold Coins for him. We worked out a commission. I was handling the money, so I knew I had control over something. I sold nearly $50,000 in a week. The other thing this individual did was do it over the July 4th Holiday Weekend, which made it more difficult to diagnose because banks, etc. were closed on holiday, or had limited staffing.
My ONLY SAVING GRACES: 1) I handled the money. 2) I wouldn't release funds until the buyers received their coins and left feedback (even under Extreme Pressure to do so by this joker).
I printed the shipping labels, made a PDF file for the labels and emailed the labels to him so he could just simply print the label to ship the Coins.
He changed the addresses to go to another address in the same town (first box shipped with $6754 worth of Gold Buffalo's was to a Chinese restaurant in the buyers home town), and shipped EMPTY BOXES. Now these required Signature Confirmation, and I was able to track the first box (buyer knew PO employees rather well, next-door neighbor), and the Post Master because it's a small town and he did alot of shipping.
I called the Chinese restaurant that signed for the package, and they all got a laugh that the box was empty when it originally was delivered. They had opened the package, even though they did not know the sender.
To protect the chain of evidence, I had the Post Master pick up the box from the Chinese Restaurant. The buyer actually volunteered to do that, but working with buyer, I called the Post Master and she had it picked up by Postal Employees.
The PO delivery person also remembered the box not weighing what was marked on the package; and when delivering the package thought that was strange, but delivered it nonetheless.
To make a longer story short: 1) I had $20,000 in my personal bank account that I sent back back to my Paypal account and refunded the buyers (with some hassles using the Paypal system) because my account had been "Frozen" so it didn't allow me to refund properly. Paypal also said the buyers would be out of luck if I were dishonest. 2)I emailed all buyers to make them aware of this SCAM, and to not reply to anyone but me, Ebay or Paypal, regarding their purchase; And that I was working on refunding their money so they could buy from another seller. Many of them already had received bogus "Second Chance Offers" to purchase these coins directly from the Crook in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. 3)It took me a few days to figure out how to refund the money to all the buyers (NO HELP FROM PAYPAL) and within a week or so, everyone had their money back (at a cost to me of over 100 hours at $180 per hour). This jerk was a career criminal. Contact me and I'll provide his name(s) to you.
This individual is trully evil and tried to make it look like I was the Scammer to the Authorities (who saw through that rather quickly). I also filed complaints with my local Post Office (who knows me rather well), the FBI, and my local county Sheriff's Police. It still took 7 months to have him arrested, and primarily because he did this to others as well, and sold on other sites. The authorities told me unless it was over $100,000, it wouldn't be "worth it" for Postal Inspectors to get involved and actually investigate/arrest him (how's that--will give you a simple traffic ticket, but won't investigate/arrest someone unless they committed multiple frauds and they add up to over $100,000.........simply B.S. to me).
This individual has been indicted and is facing 11+ counts of Interstate Internet Fraud and multiple counts of Mail Fraud with the Postal Inspector's Office. I have been reassured he will be having his last meal behind bars.
MORAL OF THE STORY: BE CAREFUL OUT THERE. THERE ARE SOME EBAYERS THAT ARE NOT AS HONEST AS YOU WISH THEM TO BE & IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE--------IT IS.
I lost nearly $9000 in commissions, and over 100 hours of my time (which in my computer networking business I charge $180 per hour), to come up with a loss of over $25,000.
I know this got off the subject of Phishing and Email Scams, but thought this would be helpful to all that read it.
It has taken me over a year to sell anything else on Ebay, and to get back to my hobby of collecting coins.
It was a very costly educational process, and if you have any questions you may contact me through my store:
Patriot Coins and Collectibles
You should also check my feedback after July 3rd 2006, to see my buyers feedback from this process.
If this saves even one of you from the headaches I've incurred (and my only Neutral and Negative feedback), then it was worth sharing this with you.