Suspect ebay fraud - how does this work then?

[Unreal]

Like most of us, I have a few email addresses, a couple of which are used for buying, selling and general enquiries to make sure the main email isn't spammed. Let's call the email addresses A, B and C.

A is the professional account - it is the recovery address for ebay. Never had an emaill from ebay other than verification.
B is used for general stuff but has no links to ebay, and never has done, not even as a back up account.
C is also used for general stuff but is the main ebay address.

No email address is ever listed on ebay. Any contacts are restricted to ebay messaging.

Today address B has received a fake but realistic email saying I've got an offer for an item I have listed. The giveaway is that the offer is for the full amount and it's listed as buy it now and doesn't accept offers. The other giveaway being that I've never had an ebay linked email to that email address before. They always go to email C.

There is nothing in ebay messaging relating to an offer on that item.

I can hover and see that clicking on any of the links in the email takes me off to an ebay.to destination. The assumption being that the links will lead to different forms of hassle.

So how the hell has the scammer correctly identified an item I have for sale and linked it to an email address I own but don't use for ebay?

[Pachydermus]

Without knowing A, B, C and your ebay account name it's pretty hard to say. Do you use some form of your real name on ebay that would let them just randomly guess email b?

[Unreal]

Pachydermus said:

Without knowing A, B, C and your ebay account name it's pretty hard to say. Do you use some form of your real name on ebay that would let them just randomly guess email b?

No, the user name is completely unconnected. My first name is mentioned in some ancient feedback and email B contains that name but would be an incredible guess to get the email. Think 'Dave' mentioned in feedback and [e-mail] as email B with a user name of dodgydick. I can't see how they've linked it.

It's no big deal and no damage done. I just wondered if I was missing something obvious.

[Pachydermus]

Beats me, hopefully someone else has some ideas.
I don't recall ever receiving a scammy "you have a buyer" email of any sort even though I regularly list things on ebay worth the effort so it seems quite targetted.

[The_Nugget]

Hi,

I have no idea! But you might want to put that email in to https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Might get some clues.
Failing that, ask eBay customer support what they think.
There has to be a rationale explanation.

[KTMsm]

I've had similar in the past, just ignored it

Never had any other issues

I can only assume that if they have a computer generating a million emails an hour, some are going to be accurate

[The_Nugget]

KTMsm said:

I've had similar in the past, just ignored it

Never had any other issues

I can only assume that if they have a computer generating a million emails an hour, some are going to be accurate

Matching an item that he has listed? Seems incredibly unlikely.

[KTMsm]

The_Nugget said:

Matching an item that he has listed? Seems incredibly unlikely.

More using items on eBay as the base of the scam and then sending a million emails about them

[Unreal]

Thanks all. Sent it to ebay. I've asked for their thoughts on how it was done and if I get an answer I'll post what they say.

[mgtony]

Just want to mention this as it might be useful to those that don't already know. If you right click on an email in your inbox (without the need to open it), then click 'view', then 'view message source' it shows all the tech info of the email. Most of it is code but if you have a scroll through, shows the email address it actually came from and in there somewhere is the text that's in the email.
This can help confirming an email is spam without even opening it. Works on Outlook, not sure about other formats.

[The_Nugget]

KTMsm said:

The_Nugget said:

Matching an item that he has listed? Seems incredibly unlikely.

More using items on eBay as the base of the scam and then sending a million emails about them

Yes, that’s what I thought you meant. It seems very unlikely, but then again, humans are generally crap at understanding statistics so I suppose if you send enough emails quickly enough and cheaply enough you only need to get lucky a few times.