We have seen a marked increase in a new type of scam. It is the “Second Chance Offer” scam and the intent is to steal your ID and login info.

If you bid on an auction for a vehicle, once the auction has closed others can look at the bidder list and see what your high bid was. This new scam uses an e-mail that looks just like an e-bay second chance offer. Most of the Links go back to E-bay, but the “Buy it Now” links go to a spoof page that will force you to log in and in doing so steal your info.

There are way to avoid this from both sellers and buyers. We have used private bidder auctions for years. This was started because of earlier problems with scam artists contacting bidder with offers of “the same car” at “half the price”, but of course they were not on e-bay, and needed a deposit overnighted to secure it. Since we use private auctions our buyers haven’t had a problem. However, we buy from e-bay also and we have received 3 fake second chance offers in the last week.

If you get a second chance offer, go to “My e-Bay” and click on “My Messages”. If it isn’t stored there, it isn’t real.

Keep Safe and Happy Trading!