RSSSeven Convicted in eBay Phishing Scam
By Ed Oswald | Published November 1, 2005, 12:45 PM
Internet users are warned repeatedly about phishing, yet some still are careless as to whom they hand out their personal information. But the authorities are beginning to crack down on the growing problem. On Tuesday, 29 year-old David Levi of Lytham, England was sentenced to four years in jail for stealing money and committing identity theft through an eBay phishing scam.
Levi, along with six others, stole nearly $360,000 from over 160 people through a scam that asked them to update their bank information with eBay. The auction site never sends out such e-mails, and has repeatedly warned its customers about phishing scams that appear to be legitimate eBay communications.
"A large number of people lost a significant amount of money, and it is quite apparent that the use of a fraudulent eBay site was quite sophisticated," Judge Phillip Sycamore said in his ruling.
Levi had already been serving time for drug-related convictions, and will serve four years more for this crime. Three of years would be for fraud, and one year for "perverting the course of justice," which is referred to as obstruction of justice in the United States.
Other members of the group received sentences from six months to two years, depending on their involvement. Levi's brother Guy and Daniel Lett, both 22, were sentenced to 21 and 24 months respectively on conspiracy charges. Derek Anderson, 59, Chris Worden, 23, Craig Jameson, 31, and Gareth Rice, 22 received six months for money laundering.
On the American version of the eBay site, the company includes a Security Center where it warns about e-mails like the ones Levi sent. "Do not click on a link embedded within any potentially suspicious email, especially if the email requests personal information," the site says.
eBay recommends that users download the company's toolbar, which will warn customers when they are on a site that is not either eBay nor PayPal and may be suspicious.
Well I'm back, and I have to say that I am forced to agree *IN PART* with eunichman in that people (10's of thousands of ebay users in othe words) are just soooo unbelievably fscking UNINTELLIGENT!!!!! No I mean unfathomably moronic to the point of g** d*** science fiction. Sometimes you see what these people fall for and you literally wonder why their mother didn't just swallow that particular load on that fateful day.
Bad batch of sperm indeed! HOWEVER, on the other hand if you see the LENGTHS that these other scumbags go to in order to make their scam "undeniably authentic" you'd be quite shocked and impressed I might add. We're talking not your average e-bay slime.
Spoofing and using trusted e-bay accounts (snatched from legit users with awesome ratings) is only the tip of the iceberg. Last thing I remember with the ring i've been spying on is spoofing squaretrade.com in such a cool and real-looking way that it's simply indestinguishable to the average or even semi-savvy online trader. You literally have to be a "real nerd" to not fall for this.
Bottom line is just simply "you're NOT safe, ever". When you shop online you're taking huge risks each and every single time you make a transaction, no matter who you are. Period. In fact, many of you may be thinking "well this hasn't happened to me and I've been doing online trading for years and am not a nerd either".
And the reason for you not being scammed by our famous Romanians yet is, simply put: They just haven't gotten to you yet. The only thing protecting average half-wit e-bay users AT ALL right now is quite simply the sheer number of "phish in the sea". All I gotta say is 2 things: 1. Become educated on the ways of scum or be prepared to eventually lose a butload of $$$ from online trading, because they will eventually get to you. 2. Screw Western Union!
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|Sorry ebay, if I don't cheer at this news. ebay's buyer protection is poor. It took me multiple faxes and letters to ebay. They said they'd pay within 45 days. Months after that date passed I outed ebay in their public forums. the replies were deleted and I finally got the money.
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|I first of all wish to start out by saying I do NOT condone phishing....
That said, all you whiney babya**es who lost money to the ebay phishing schemes? You deserve it. if you are told to do something by ebay and you disreguard that, and go off and do something else, the results of your actions can only be blamed on you and you alone.
If you recieve an email from ebay, or paypal or any other site you have an account with - asking you to update, then by all means do so! log into the site as you normally would and verify your info is up to date. Just because you are too LAZY or too much of an idiot to excersize a modicum of caution, doesnt mean others are to blame.
Big lessone in life here people, in the net or in real life, mankind exploits others of it's species. it has always been this way and always will. get used to it. you are either an exploitee, an exploiter, or someone with a brain who stands back and looks at everyone else thinking, "mannnn are you people freaking MORONS!"
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|Many of you have no idea just HOW FAR this goes. Let me school you a little bit on some of the REAL sh*t that goes on because quite a few of you may think that $360G's is "a lot". It's peanuts. I live and work in Greece as a network engineer for businesses such as NetCafe's (which do well around here).
Now that i've set that up let me cut to the chase about Romanians. Yes Romanians. They hold the record for e-bay scams and taking your money by the hundreds of thousands. To bluesm5853, 9 out of 10 say the guy you got scammed by "in England" was a Romanian. You see, I've been eyeballing for the past 2 years what I can only describe as WELL ORGANIZED but loose-knit TEAMS of Romanians doing this for a LIVING.
Thats right by invading their privacy with remote administration software, keylogging and other general hacks, I've uncovered a massive e-bay scamming ring(s) consisting of ONLY Romanians (they stick together in crime) that travel ALL OVER THE WORLD for the express purpose of visiting Internet cafe's to conduct this crime while simultaneously enjoying a nice vacation in whatever country they're currently defacing.
To anyone even daring to throw the word racism into their next post, I strongly suggest you re-consider because for over *2* long years I haven't seen ONE person fly in from another country to do this scam that wasn't 100% Romanian. And they're good at what they do too! TRUST me on that. The last team of 8 guys and 1 girl (!) that came into our place of business stayed on average 7hours/day @ 2.50E/hr for a month straight. Selling everything from Plasma TV's to cars to g** d*** FARMING EQUIPMENT! (rofl).
One guy tried to make friends with me during some time the 2nd year and revealed to me that he "spent 12,000Euro last year just on beer". Add to that that they get help from WITHIN the united states (THOUSANDS of stolen credit-cards thru compromized databases either by hackers or insiders working for US companies that YOU TRUST) and you've got a combo that make e-bay shopping ONLY FOR THE ULTRA savvy.
No point here, just wanted to share an unbelievable story (and trust me thats only like 1/3rd of it cause my fingers are tired and plus i'm going the f*ck to sleep now). happy ebaying! :-0
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|Kinda off topic, but man technology has gone far--read the title of this article, ten years ago it would sound like it's illegal to fish in the "E Bay" (as opposed to the Hudson Bay)
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|I was scammed on Ebay last year with a phishing email, and the villian was from England. Glad to hear the authorities are cracking down.
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|That's really great. In a few years they'll be out and at it again no doubt, that's if they don't continue their operations from behind bars.
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|actually, i think the punishment fits the crime, and isn't terribly over done for once.
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|finally some action...but it still falls upon the people to not believe everything they get in their email!
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|True .. you just have to teach them how to use the Internet ,educate them .. the biggest give away is the URL (Webbsite address)
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|7 Scumbags down, 7 million to go.
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