I received an email from ebay, asking me to do a simple survey for 20 dollars. Google had conducted similiar surveys and it is not surprising that ebay could do the same. The survey was very tempting because I had nothing to loose and I believed many people would think the same way like I did. The email was written professionally and there was nothing suspicious about the links.

Like the paypal email scam that I wrote earlier, http://www.sitecritic.net/articleDetail.php?&id=89, the latest ebay email scam looked really believable and I almost fell for it. Many people are used to receiving scam emails asking them to update their details but this one is more tricky. I hope this article can prevent unwary internet users from being cheated by unethical people. The email looks like this:

----- eBay's Survey Department

Dear eBay Member,

You have been chosen by the eBay's Survey Department to take part in our quick and easy 6 question survery, In return we will instantly credit $20 to your account - Just for your time! Helping us better understand how our customer's feel benefits everyone. With the information collected we can decide to direct a number of changes to improve and expand our online service. The information you provide us is all sensitive - No part of it is handed down to any third party groups. It will be stored in our secure database for a maximum of 7 days while we process the results of this nationwide survey.

We kindly ask you to please spare 2 minutes of your time in taking part with this unique offer!

To Continue click or copy and paste the link below : http://signin.ebay-survey.com/.ws/ebayISAPI.dll%3fSignIn/index.ht m

Regards, eBay's Survey Department -----

If you click on the link, you will arrive at signin.ebay-survey.com and there is nothing wrong with the site(Ebay logo, header, footer...etc). You might think that ebay-survey.com belongs to ebay. Wrong! If you type in the url ebay-survey.com, you will arrive at a totally different site.

Upon entering signin.ebay-survey.com, you will be asked to do a simple survey, then you are asked to sign in. The site looks real because it actually checks if your userID and password are valid. If you enter the userID as "blar" and password as "12345", the login will not work. You should be able to login with any fake userID and password (more than 8 characters for each). After that, you will be given a very good reason to reveal your credit card details.

--- Why do we need your credit card information?

Please enter your credit card information linked with your eBay and/or Paypal account. We will deposit the $20 cash back directly to your account within three business days of your next purchase.

The Credit will appear as "eBay Reward Survey" on your next billing statement. --

If you enter your credit card details, then "bye bye". The fake ebay email uses the popular idea of "getting paid for doing surveys" to cheat unwary internet users. The email is tricky, tempting, well-planned and believable. I am pretty sure that this scam is going to claim alot of victims. If you have friends using ebay services, make sure you warn them before it is too late.

About the author:

Bernard Peh is a great passioner of web technologies and one of the co-founders of Sitecritic.net Website Reviews. He works with experienced web designers and developers for more than 5 years, developing and designing commercial and non-commercial websites. During his free time, he does website reviews,freelance SEO and PHP work.