Know When You Are Getting Scammed

In this guide, I will tell you some basic tips in avoiding fraud as well as sharing a couple of my personal experiences with fraudsters so you can learn from my experiences. Remember, the best defense against scammers is knowledge and awareness.
How They Get Your Information
95% of the time, scammers get your information through phishing scams. Have you ever gotten an email that claimed your eBay account has gotten suspended? There are too many variations to list here, but here are the general giveaways:
The email will have some sort of urgency. The email will state (directly or indirectly) that you must respond immediately by clicking the link in the email.
There will be a link in the email that you need to click. For example, "Click here to update your information" or "Click here to respond".
It most likely will not have your eBay user id or name in it. It will have a general greeting such as "Dear eBay User". Having your email address in the email would not be sign of legitimacy.
Here is a general rule: eBay will never email you telling you to update your records. Also, scammers have recently been spoofing messages from other eBay members. For example, I would get a "message" from another eBay member saying that they are going to report me to eBay unless I respond. Can you guess where that respond button goes?
Anyways, so if you click the link in the email, you will be taken to a site that looks like eBay's, but it is not. When you put your user name and password in that spoof page, they use that information to take over your account. They will then list items on your account, and try to take payments through Western Union.
By the way, never pay anyone you don't know through Western Union. If a foreign eBayer is trying to get you to pay for an item via WU, it is a scam! I will repeat this for anybody that missed it, never pay anyone you don't know through Western Union! Western Union is a great way to send money to people you know. Why shouldn't you send cash to strangers? Because there is no paper trail. Scammers love to use this service because they know when their buyer finds out that they won't get the laptop they paid for, there will be nothing they can do about it because WU payments are irreversible.
My Personal Experience with a $400 iPod
I am a registered eBay Trading Assistant, and I have my profile publicly displayed. Every once in a while, I get scammers trying to get me to sell stolen items for them. Here is a real situation that I had with a scammer in April of '05. Please read it and learn from it.
This person contacted me through eBay's Trading Assistant search tool. He told me that he had an iPod that he got as an Easter gift, and he wanted to sell it. I said I would sell it with no problem. He said he was going to ship it to me which I thought was a little weird. If he was going to ship it to me, I don't see why he couldn't list it and sell it himself, but whatever. He also asked if I could pay him via PayPal instead of mailing a check - no problem. So I agreed to list it for him, and he said he was going to ship it to me.
A couple days later, he sent me an email with the UPS tracking number, and then asked me to list it right away as a three-day listing. The tracking number is showing that he is sending it 3-Day express. First red flag - this guy's in a hurry. I said no since for all I know, that tracking number can be for a brick being sent to me. He had signature confirmation on the package, and I was at the post office with the UPS guy came, so the package was held for a day. 30 minutes after the UPS tracking information showed I wasn't there to sign, he sent me an email stating that I need to be there and to try to get it tomorrow. He seems to be a little obsessed over it, but whatever. So the next day comes, and I get the package, and sure enough, there was an iPod inside, but here was where I knew I was getting scammed. Second red flag - The iPod was shipped directly from Amazon.com as a gift with my name in the order! I couldn't believe it. Since I now knew that this came from Amazon, I looked the iPod up on the site and see that they cost $450. He wanted me to sell it Buy-it-Now for $400. Third red flag - he is having me sell it at a loss (but not to him of course). This proved that he lied to me saying he already had it because the order date was after the first email he sent me several days earlier.
This is where I give this guy credit for being smart. He used the stolen credit card information to make the purchase, and put my address down as the shipping address. His name or address was nowhere on the order! If I fell for it, I would have sold the item, sent him the money, and then I would have the police knocking on my door because it was my name on the order form!
First thing I did was to email the scammer. Just to confirm he was full of lies, I told him he had to call me to confirm some information. To make a long story short, he wouldn't. Fourth red flag - he wouldn't talk to me even though I had a toll-free number. Then I called Amazon with the order number, and they confirmed that it was "not a legitimate transaction". I then sent the $400 iPod back to avoid getting nailed.
So let's summarize - here are the red flags that led me to the conclusion that I was being scammed
*This guy was in a hurry
*He lied about how he got it
*He wanted me to sell it under cost
*He was afraid to call me and share his phone number
Summery - Avoid Scammers
So after reading all of this, you should know that avoiding scammers is as simple as using your common sense. PayPal, eBay, or any other company will not send you an email and tell you to update your information. If you get an email related to your account, do not click on any links if you don't know where they go. Open a browser, and type in the address to where you want to go. If you are a trading assistant, use your head. Make sure your items are not stolen, and make sure you know who you are dealing with.
source:
http://reviews.ebay.com/Know-When-You-Are-Getting-Scammed_W0QQugidZ10000000000840374