This morning I was greeted at the door by an employee who was all upset because she had received an email from ebay telling her that they had suspended her account. Below is a summary of the conversation.
Me: "Your account wasn't suspended. It's a scam."
Her: "I don't know the email looks official."
Me: "Yeah, they do a really good job, but it's a scam."
Her jaw dropped.
Me: You didn't click on the link did you?
Her: Yes
Me: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever click on a link in an email. You know better that that. Unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is a legitimate link and you know who sent it and that they were going to send it to you.
Her: But it looked so real.
Me: Did you log in to the site?
Her: Umm, yeah.
Me: Did you give them your credit card info?
Her: Well, I started to but they were asking for my PIN and security panel number so I came to you.
Me: Whew!
I then went with her to her computer and showed her how to spot these scams and had her log into ebay and change her password.
I get asked by friends, family, and co workers all of the time about this email or that link but I've never known anyone who actually fell for it. At least she was alert enough not to fall all the way in.
Security's Everyman
Thursday, December 14, 2006
I got an email from ebay............
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2 comments:
Oh man, about two months ago I was selling about 7 things on ebay. I woke up and had about 10 questions from sellers in email.
I started to review them one by one as I drank my coffee. One of the questions seemed odd - sure enough my mind slipped and I clicked on the email. Of course the progress bar in the tab just spun and spun and I instantly realized what I had done. I laughed out loud at the irony - my job vs. how stupid that move was.
If it hadn't been stuck between 5 other questions from sellers... if it hadn't been first thing 5am....
But bottom line is I forgot. I let my guard down.
It wasn't a big deal, I had to change my seller name and my password just in case ...
But it just goes to show it can happen to anyone.
That's why I don't do emails that early! Too easy to fall asleep at the mouse.
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