[Gathnet] question about Ebay and credit cards

[Stuart D. Gathman]

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004, judy white wrote:

> Does anyone have any experience with Ebay?  And is it
> o.k. to give them (or anyone, in general) a credit
> card number for i.d. verification?  I have been
> reluctant to do so, but maybe it's safe?

If the request for "ID verification" came in an email,
it is a scam.  Neither ebay nor paypal not your bank]
will ever ask you for information via email.  Do not
click links provided in email if you are using IE -
IE is easily fooled into displaying, for example,
your banks URL in the URL bar, but displaying 
a scammers website (so that the scammer can collect
your bank info and rob you blind).  Avoid using
links provided in email with other browsers - you might
not look at the URL closely enough.  For instance,
"paypaI.com" looks exactly like "paypal.com" in
Microsoft's infamous Arial font.

Unless your mail provider is using forgery prevention software
such as SPF (http://spf.pobox.com), it is difficult
to tell whether an email really came from who it
says it came from.

-- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
    Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.