eBay Scam

Lovely, just lovely. Today (10/31/04), I received an email message, seemingly sent from Services@eBay.com, with a subject line of "Your Final Warning From eBay". Here's a screenshot of the message.

Note there is a link to sign in to http://signin.ebay.com/eBayISAPI.dll?SignIn&ssPageName=h:h:sin:US which, on the face of it, is a valid eBay url. The beauty (if you can call it that) is that, because this is an html-formatted email message, the link conceals the real url. Should you foolishly click it you will be delivered to http://esv1.ajesthe.jp/signin.ebay.com/saw-cgi/eBayISAPIdllSignIn.php, a meticulously rendered fake on a Japanese server.

I can't read the Japanese, but ajesthe.jp appears to be a company or organization's website. Can you say "hacked"? I knew you could.

Here's a screenshot of the fake log in page. You can log in using any information, real or not -- this is just the front for the real scam -- although I'm sure your username and password would get harvested, if you're fool enough to supply them. The real kicker, however, is the next page...

Again, you have to admire the workmanship. This isn't a casual scam. Someone put quite a bit of thought into it. You are asked to supply your card number, card id number, expiration date, and pin number. They probably should have left that last one off, since most people are now trained (or should be) to be wary of requests for pin numbers.