The biggest advantage that folks have had regarding various scams on the Internet is that the scammers tend toward incompetence. They cobble together improbable messages, riddled with basic spelling and grammar errors, that most folks look at and say, “Hey, this is untrustworthy.” My biggest fear has always been scam offers that look as good as the real thing.
Well, the scammers may be getting that smart, as this tale of someone who got a very plausible sounding e-mail about their eBay account being disabled, which led to a very plausible web page to put in validation information, shows.
The writer got suspicious on principle (always double-check when something out of the ordinary asks you for “secret” information) and did some digging that confirmed his suspicions, but it’s not the sort of thing that most folks would do.
Be careful out there, folks.
I received some very similar e-mails, only “eBay” was replaced with “Earthlink.” Their web pages also looked very realistic, and included some links to real Earthlink pages. I forwarded the messages to EL, who informed me that they were working to shut these guys down. The scammmers were using multiple domains, so I sent EL links to all the pages. I haven’t been hit by these guys agai!