Avoiding eBay FraudThere are several things that can lead to eBay fraud. In this article I will go over ways to protect yourself, spot warnings signs that raise red flags, interpret feedback, and research sellers. If you are not buying products you still have to worry about it. You can still fall victim to it. It is not common for people to fall victim to fraud on eBay, but it does happen. You still need to take all necessary precautions to prevent it. That includes buyers and seller. If you are careful it will likely not ever happen to you. Certain types of eBay fraud can affect you for the rest of you life. Using Feedback To Protect YourselfThe eBay feedback system is the most underutilized tool that can prevent eBay fraud. There are several things to look for in a persons feedback. A sellers approval rate is just the tip of the iceberg.Obviously the first thing to investigate is a seller’s approval or satisfaction rate. Do they have positive or negative feedback. If they have negative feedback don’t buy from them. Even if they have sold few items buy the same product elsewhere. Ebay is huge and chances are the product is being sold by another person. The next thing to look at is the number of items the person has sold. The higher amount of sold items the better. Anyone with a positive feedback and a high number of items sold is usually safe to buy from. Look to see if they have been mostly a buyer or seller. It is listed in the feedback for every item they have bought or sold. Buyer is symbolized with a "B" and seller is symbolized with a "F". The more balance there is the better. Investigate the items they bought. Some eBay fraud criminals will buy alot of items listed by their partner in crime that seem odd. They will do this several times. They buy simple meaningless items just to balance out the sell to buy ratio. If you find a lot of sketchy items be careful. Look to see if the auction ending dates correspond with the time feedback was left. If most of their feedback was left at the same time they are probably a scammer. For example if the seller has sold 50 items over a spread out period of time, and the feedback left for all those items was posted in the same week. The last thing to investigate in a sellers feedback is their recent activity. If they have had no activity for a number of months and all of a sudden they have 25 items posted for sell they might be trying to commit ebay fraud. Protecting Your Credit Card InformationThe rarest and most dangerous form of eBay fraud is stolen credit card information that can lead to identity theft. Everyone is familiar with the dangers of identity theft. There are some warnings to look for that can minimize the risk of this happening.If you see a auction with a buy it now price that looks way to low to be true it is probably a trick. In almost all cases of this you are required to contact the seller before purchase. That is when they hack into your computer. How? Does contacting them help them hack into your computer. Every computer has a unique number called a I.P. address. An I.P. address is unique to each computer. The reason the seller wants you to contact them first is so they can access your I.P. address. When a hacker identifies that address they can start hacking into your computer. Once they hack into your computer they will start bidding on eBay items through your account. They will start changing all your passwords to all your accounts. Soon they will be buying things under your name. If this happens to your contact eBay and have them cancel your account. Then call your credit card company and terminate your credit card. Protecting Your PayPal PasswordStolen PayPal information is the second rarest form of eBay fraud. This type comes in the form of emails. There is no other way to attain someone’s PayPal information than to trick them into giving it to you.What happen is you get a email from PayPal. The highly scammed criminals create a email that has the PayPal logo and everything on it. It will look exactly like a PayPal email. Then they ask you to login into your PayPal account. This is where they steal your information. They add a invisible device in the email known as a scripting bypass bug. It sounds complicated but is just a device that lets them know exactly what you are keys you are pressing on your computer. That lets them see what you are typing in the password box on your computer. A lot of times they address you in the subject of the email "PayPal Member". Paypal does not address members in that manner. PayPal always addresses members by first and last name in emails. If you get a email that addresses you by something else don't open it.
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