Seth Purdy shares his tale of a very complex eBay scam that’s sure to cause a lot of eBay sellers grief.

Here’s what happened:

• Purdy was selling an item worth about $250 and someone fraudulently bidded on the item to drive up to $395.
• eBay canceled the auction automatically because of the fraudulent bidding.
• The next day Purdy received a fake PayPal confirmation email that showed the winner of the auction sent the funds for the item plus $100 for shipping, much more than what was being asked for. The shipping address the winner provided was in Nigeria.
• An hour later Purdy received an email from the winner of the auction stating he’s been paid and that he would like it shipped out ASAP.
• Soon after, Purdy received another email from the winner demanding that the package be sent out or he may involve PayPal and the FBI.

Now, if this didn’t happen to a security researcher and eBay didn’t detect that the auction had fraudulent bid, I think the average person might have fallen for this scam. Especially if they weren’t thrown/alerted by the Nigerian shipping address.

Keep an eye out and always confirm that funds have actually been deposited in your PayPal account by navigating to PayPal directly; not through links in emails!

Tags: e bay, ebay, ebay auction