Particularly nasty: The thieves pretend to use the “Pay Safely” method for their scam. Ebay offers classified ads as an internal purchase process including buyer and seller protection – actually to protect its users from fraud. According to the police, the criminals first contact the seller of a product via WhatsApp and express interest in an item. They then state that they want to make the purchase via secure payment – that sounds trustworthy. Shortly thereafter, the seller receives an official-looking link under which he should enter his credit card details to receive the payment.
Never submit payment details
At this point at the latest, experienced users are puzzled, because Ebay classifieds never asks for credit card details during the purchase process. On the contrary: The highlight of the secure purchase process is that the buyer never sees your payment information. However, if you are not familiar with this, you are falling into a nasty trap at this point. Of course, the link received is not from Ebay classifieds, but from the criminals to whom the victim has just sent their full payment information.
Instead of transferring money, the supposed buyers use the stolen credit card details to withdraw money. According to the police, this process takes place abroad and is particularly common in Russia. If you are taken in by the rip-off, have your credit card blocked immediately and report it to the police in any case. To protect yourself from such fraud, you should only make purchases and sales through the official eBay classifieds channels and avoid external communication via WhatsApp or email.