BMW 4.8is ebay SCAM - PLEASE READ

[X5 Meister]

The other day someone posted a 4.8is that was for sale on ebay for a price that was literally too good to be true ($19,000), even in these economic times. The thread was subsequently removed (not really sure why). In any case, it reeked of a scam and I wanted to look into it further and make a post to warn others not to fall for this nonsense.

Part 1- The bait
Person steals a group of photos and information of a beautiful car, in this case a 2005 BMW 4.8is, and posts an ebay ad using just 1 photo. They create a real ebay ad with someone's legitimate ebay user name, in this case 'wojtek18t' since they hacked that account.

Part 2- The phish
You come along and see the ad for this amazing car at an amazing price and wonder why there is only 1 photo posted. So you e-mail the poster asking for more pictures. You send this request through the ebay system, since you have no other choice.

What you do not realize is that the poster has hacked someone's actual ebay account in such a manner that any questions sent for that particular listing get a reply asking for you, in turn, to reply to a specific e-mail address, now outside of the ebay system. In this case the e-mail address is '[email protected]'. Notice that it differs ever so slightly from the ebay account name by a simple missing letter, the letter 't'. See attachment 1.

Part 3- The reply
You send a request for more photos to this new e-mail address (which should already make you feel that this is sort of strange to have to send multiple e-mails, to different accounts, for something as simple as more photos), instead of replying using the "Respond" button which would send your response through the ebay system.

Part 4- Caught by ebay
Ebay realizes the scam and shuts it down, likely because the true owner of the ebay account realizes their account has been hacked or someone asking for more information did use the "Respond" button on the e-mail which went through the ebay system and got flagged which started the ball rolling on getting this fake listing removed. Ebay then sends out this notice to all people who have requested additional information on that listing. See attachment 2.

Part 5- Reeling the phish in
Meanwhile, the scammer, who now has your e-mail address, sends you this e-mail. See attachment 3 using their e-mail address which has now changed to '[email protected]' and lists the name of the person as 'Deborah Fisher' . Sort of ironic since this is technically a 'phishing' scam.

Please read this e-mail carefully. There is no phone number, mailing address, information on the location of the car, ... nothing. Look at the poor grammar, though they are getting better, it is still pretty lousy. If after reading the e-mail you don't realize that it's a scam, you need to turn off your computer and go for a walk. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL WITH ANY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION. They try to make you feel better and seem more legit by claiming it is going to be a transaction done under the watchful eye of ebay. BULLSHIT. What they will do is have a FAKE ebay system send you payment instructions and details, to which you will send the money and then you will never ever see or hear from anyone again. And obviously you'll never see any car since they didn't have one to sell in the first place.

Please be careful. This shit is everywhere.

Update: The car listed in the fake ad really is for sale on ebay. Here it is listed for $40,000+ :
eBay Motors: BMW : X5 (item 260376419325 end time Apr-02-09 12:28:24 PDT)

The bogus seller who set up the scam, e-mailed the real seller requesting photos and that is how the scam got started.