Spoof Emails

Is there no end to these Spoof Emails I receive each day?

What is a Spoof Email? Surely you know. Surely you've received them. You haven't? Well, I guess you must be the only one. I'm kind of jealous.

A Spoof email is an email received that pretends to be sent from somewhere else in order to get information from you. They are predominantly, if not totally, sent by fraudsters looking to steal your identity or take over your bank account to extract funds. Some coding will alter or disguise the email address they've originally been sent from.

These fake emails will be made to look like they're from financial institutions such as world banks, but also heavily include PayPal and eBay. If you suspect a Spoof email regarding the last two you should forward them either to Spoof@ebay.com or Spoof@PayPal.com.

Typically the Spoof email will announce some sort of minor or major disaster that needs your attention. There will be a link for you to click to be taken to the site...

DON'T CLICK IT, YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO A DUMMY SITE THE FRAUDSTER HAS SET UP. THEY WANT YOU TO TYPE IN YOUR USER NAME AND PASSWORD SO THEY CAN STEAL THEM.

Remember: No financial institution will ever send you an email with a link to click in it that takes you to a sign on screen.

How the Fraudsters obtrain your email address in the first place is one of heated debate, but presumably it must have been leaked from somewhere. Data Protection is supposed to protect all your details given to any company. They are not supposed to give them out.

Be careful. Some of the Spoof emails are a lot more sophisticated than others. Some are riddled with spelling errors, some are very professional. Remember... never click on email links. Instead, go directly to the Financial Institutions website and check your account status there or phone them.

Spoof emails I have received today are from three banks I have no account with and are even based in a different country. Desperate stuff.

Always be vigilant and don't let the Fraudsters win.

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www.jenkin7 - www.jenkin7.com
Giftware & Collectables

Goofbay inceases your chances of Winning eBay Auctions

I will try not to make this sound like an advert, because it most definitely is not one.

A little while back whilst bidding on eBay auctions, I was finding I was being outbid in the final few seconds of an auction. I would be winning for quite some time and then time and time again, another user would win the item at the death. Initially I just accepted this as part of the process, but then it just started to get plain annoying!

I decided to try and use the same strategy by bidding right near the end. I found this very tricky to time right, sometimes I wasn't available to bid and other times, I just forgot.

Then I found an Auction Sniping tool called Goofbay.

Goofbay offers a FREE auction sniping service. If you open an account with them and fill in the required details, Goofbay automatically bids on your behalf with your maximum bid. You can even set the bid to happen within 2 seconds of the end. Nobody has much chance of responding to a bid placed 2 seconds before the end.

I was dubious at first and little concerned about typing in sensitive information to people I didn't even know who were running a Free service. To apply the bids for you, Goofbay require your eBay password.

I need not have been worried at all. The service worked beautifully and I was now winning items at great prices!

If you are experiencing similar problems and always being outbid right near the end, I would strongly recommend Goofbay. I found their service to be both safe and extremely reliable.

Placing the snipes is also very easy. You just need the eBay listing number, the amount you are willing to bid and when you want to bid. Not only that, Goofbay will send you emails when the bidding has gone above your entered amount!

Overall, I have been very impressed.

www.goofbay.com

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay, Ebid, Tazbar

Hello there, and welcome to another one of my blogs concerning the goings on at eBay.

There have been more changes on the eBay auction site in the last 12 months than at anytime during their history. Theses include, changes to the way the Feedback system works (Buyers can't get Negative Feedback no matter what), changes to the Search Engine, and changes to item international visibility to name just a few. These changes combined with the current global credit crunch going on is making it very difficult for many sellers.

Some blame the state of the economy, others put the blame for loss in sales entirely down to eBay and state they are immediately moving to alternative auction sites to progress their business. eBay can prove expensive in listing fees if you are not getting the sales.

Unfortunately, rival auction sites like eBid and Tazbar, simply do not currently have enough traffic. While it is perhaps alluring for a struggling Seller to go there, when the average buyer thinks of Auction sites, they naturally just think of eBay. Unless a major mover like Google or Virgin enter the fray, this is unlikely to ever change. ebid and Tazbar simply do not have the money for advertising to take on the mighty eBay.

Below is a graph (source:Alexa) of web traffic between eBid and Tazbar.



As you can see eBid is a lot busier than Tazbar. But lets put this in to context. Lets compare eBid with eBay.com.



As you can see, in comparison, the eBid traffic graph is barely registering. From a business point of view then, compared to eBay, eBid and Tazbar are simply not worth the effort. Sellers are flocking there, but sufficient Buyers are not. It is a lot cheaper to list items on these sites, but does it make sense to pay cheaper rent for a shop in a Mall that nobody goes to?

Currently, eBay has no serious rival, and I think they are well aware of the fact.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay: 5p listing day... again !!!

Tuesday the 8th July sees yet another 5p listing day on eBay. This is incredible. Never before in the Auction site's history have there been so many cheap listing days in quick succession as they tempt Sellers to list more.

Are eBay really now this desperate? Are eBay in trouble? Surely they would not have this many special days in a normal year. This follows on from several rounds of money-off vouchers to some chosen Buyers who pay with PayPal.

One thing that can be said, with the natural drop in sales due to global recession, at least they are doing something. To be honest, a company as big as eBay is due to be criticized what ever action it takes and there are some who will always view with suspicion, saying that eBay do not care if an item sells because they still make money from the listing fee. It is true, eBay is a lot different to the site it started off as, but all things change... that's just natural business evolution. It is up to each Seller to decide whether their business model best suits it or would be more profitable else where.

For those interested on Tuesday, 8th July 2008, Insertion Fees are just 5p for any listing using the Auction-style, Auction-with-Buy It Now and Buy It Now only. Tuesday is a rather odd day to choose, by if you select to have a 5 day listing, this will bring your auctions to end on a Sunday which is one of the better days. Please remember though, due to the cheap listing day, the market will be saturated so... it is a bit of a gamble.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay: 5p Listing Day 12th June

It seems as if special listing days are coming thick and fast on eBay.co.uk at the moment.

On Thursday June 12th 2008, Insertion Fees are just 5p for any listing using the Auction-style, Auction-with-Buy It Now and Buy It Now only (fixed price) formats in an eligible category on eBay.co.uk.

If you have something expensive to list, put it on ebay on the 12th. If it doesn't sell, then you've only lost 5p. Seems like a good deal to me. If your item does sell though, don't forget to send it by trackable means so you are fully covered through PayPal.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay: PayPal Compulsory on all Listings

There have been many changes of late on eBay. Most not very popular, as the company try to bring back buyers in this World of current economic gloom.

As from 3rd June 2008, all listings on eBay now have to offer PayPal as a form of payment. PayPal is a company also owned by eBay and charge a fee on each payment made using their service. In essence then, a Seller is charged once to List their item, then a Final Valuation Fee when it sells, and then another Fee when the Buyer pays. With this new compulsory PayPal payment ruling, profits at eBay can only rise even further. eBay hold such a stranglehold on the Market with such a high level of Web-Traffic attracted to the site , it is extremely unlikely that there will ever emerge a serious competitor to threaten this dominance.

To be clear... PayPal only has to be offered in the list of acceptable payments by a Seller. A Buyer can still pay by Cheque or Postal Order if they wish and the particular Seller states they will accept them.

eBay's reasoning for this is that they want to enhance the safety of the eBay marketplace to ensure buyers and sellers are increasingly protected and confident transacting on the site. PayPal now also have the right to hold back funds on, what they consider to be, high risk items and will only release funds to the Seller after the Buyer is satisfied.

All this is GREAT news for the Buyer. If these new measures are strictly followed then eBay should become a much safer Marketplace to buy from. Fraud should theoretically reduce. Gone will be the days, that a Fraudulent Seller can Sell thousands of high end items like Plasma Televisions at £1000 a go and then suddenly vanished with all the honest buyer's money.

Undoubtedly however, it is very likely that more Fraudulent buyers will start using the site and many small and hobby Sellers may find this difficult to live with. Sadly, the days when finding a unique item could suddenly be gone and the marketplace transformed into one of those faceless identical major chain store High Streets.

It certainly looks as if eBay are evolving into something else as a Market platform and only the long-term will play out what that could be...

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay - FREE Picture Gallery

Things have got a bit hectic on the Forums of eBay UK of late. Following on from my Blog of yesterday, it would appear that the Feedback system, initially, has not gone down very well. Not surprising really. With just 1 Neutral Feedback in a 12 month selling period now effecting a Sellers overall percentage score, gone are the days where a long term established Seller can easily hang on to a 100% / 99.9% reputation.

Perhaps this is just a settling in period. A time where what is considered a good Feedback score is totally reevaluated.

It's not all bad news however.

Maybe to placate this inevitable Seller backlash, eBay UK have announced a FREE Gallery promotion. The Gallery Picture upgrade feature usually costs 15p and is the small picture you see beside each listing during a main search. Naturally Auctions with Gallery pictures get a lot more interest and in turn better sales.

As a quick example of the savings, a Seller who lists 1,000 items a month will save themselves £150. Not bad! Although members in the US have enjoyed a FREE gallery as a regular option anyway. Still... it's important to focus on the positives and any reduction in costs must be good for business. It will be interesting to see the reaction in the US when the new Feedback system is rolled out there.

Remember, FREE Gallery in on eBay UK runs from 19 May until 30 September. For the full announcement, please click the link below.


Free Gallery Announcement

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay.. so, who leaves Feedback first?

Buying or Selling on the auction site eBay?

So, who should really leave Feedback first? Buyer or Seller? It shouldn't really feel like a shootout at High Noon, but if you've used the Auction site for a decent length of time, occasionally it can feel that way.

In an ideal world, a seller would sell an item at a profit to make a living. A buyer would buy an item they liked or needed and leave happy and no feedback or red-tape would be documented anywhere. In these modern day times, this is a bit of a unachievable utopia. The Internet is a large faceless arena where you can be trading with just about anybody in the entire world.

As per usual, I'm perhaps slowly drifting off topic. So who should leave Feedback first then?

Well... recent changes on eBay within the last couple of days have perhaps made this blog rather moot. It doesn't make too much difference who leaves Feedback first now as Sellers cannot leave Buyers any Feedback other than Positive. It does rather unbalance things a bit and makes the value of Buyer's Feedback somewhat irrelevant. Imagine if you were a film critic, but if you saw a really bad film, you were not allowed to tell anybody about it. In this example you can see that the new system is maybe bordering on the ridiculous.

However... having just written the above paragraph, I can still see some business logic to this change. Buyers can now leave truthful Feedback without the fear of being left negative retaliatory Feedback in return. In theory this should expose a lot of the unscrupulous sellers. In theory. Without the fear of Negative Feedback, Buyer confidence goes up and therefore eBay generate more income.

Will this new Feedback system work? It's too early to tell. In the short term, Sellers are probably going to find things a bit uncomfortable. However, if over time, there are more Buyers on the site, good Sellers can only eventually benefit.

eBay plan near the end of the month to open a special hub for Sellers to protect them against Feedback extortion and underhand Buyers exploiting the new system.

So who should leave Feedback first? PASS.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk