Email Scams
Being one of the internet's most trusted sites for selling and buying, eBay is perfect for scammers. The easiest way for scammers to hack your account is by sending you fake emails, pretending to be from eBay officials. Remember that eBay will NEVER ask you for your userID or password in an email. More clever hackers might provide you with a fake link that looks something like eBay's URL. For example, you may get an email telling you that you've just won an item you never actually bid on. The link may look something like : http://ebay.someserver.com/auction.dll?item=5456456. Notice that the part of the URL in red is the real website, and the eBay part is just a fake subdomain. Clicking on this sort of link will ask you to log in, then record your userID and password. The scammer will then use your ID and password to sell items and scam others.
Fake Escrow Services
To build a buyer's trust, sellers will often ask to use an escrow service. An escrow service holds the money for the seller until the buyer receives the items. The only reliable escrow service is Escrow.Com. When sellers ask to use any other escrow service, there is a good chance that the site is a scam. Even the most professional looking sites are often elaborate scams to get your money. Don't trust any other escrow sites other than Escrow.Com.
Scamming by Western Union
Another way for a seller to get your cash is to ask you to use Western Union. Western Union specifically states on their website that you should not send money to anyone you don't know. The seller might go as far as to tell you that you can use the secret question feature, or even that western union will make sure to check for identification. Unfortunately, most western union agents don't check for either the question or for ID. As long as a customer has the pick-up location, they're allowed to pick up the money.
Friends increasing each other's auctions
To increase activity on hot items, sellers will sometimes call on their friend's to start a bidding war. This can be difficult to spot, since these friends will drive the price of the item up, then let other sellers win it. If you see one user constantly driving up prices of the items be careful. This one is hard to catch, but by shadowing other users' bids you can find out if sellers are trying to scam you.
