eBay Says Fighting Foreign Fraud an 'Uphill Battle'

Company decries lack of interest in cybercrime in three key countries

Citing a lack of interest in prosecuting cybercrime, criminals have "no fear of real punishment" in three key countries responsible for the majority of phishing attacks that target eBay users, Mark Lee, trust and safety chief for eBay UK, said last week. As a result, Russia, China and Romania are essentially safe havens for thieves targeting eBay users for personal and account details.

Speaking at an e-crime conference in London, Lee highlighted the particular scale of the problem in Romania.

"These attacks are definitely organized," Lee said, according to a report by Nick Heath for Silicon.com.

"There are towns in Romania where the entire focus is on sites like eBay as the main source of income," Lee said.

"As of early 2007, approximately 47 percent of all phishing attacks were being launched at either eBay or PayPal, an eBay-owned company," reports Joel Hruska on ArsTechnica today.

In his piece, "Phishing attacks, fraud continue to hound eBay," Hruska notes that eBay President/CEO Meg Whitman addressed this at the Visa Security conference last week:

"In her keynote...Whitman discussed how eBay is working with Microsoft to develop a blacklist of phishing sites. These sites will be automatically blacklisted by IE7's phishing filter, in a move the company hopes will help prevent users from stumbling into them."

You can find a wealth of information online to aid you in protecting yourself from phishing. One resource we recommend can be found on the website for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Given that the OCC charters, regulates, and supervises all U.S. national banks, we've gotta believe they know something about the issue.

In other eBay news:

Company executive Jim Ambach said eBay will send invitations to eligible PowerSellers to enroll in its new Expanded Seller Protection program. He said the launch of the new program has been delayed until mid-March. Ambach gave the news to attendees of last week's IMA conference, according to Ina Steiner at AuctionBytes today.

Also:

vzaar today announced the launch of its free video service for eBay listings in the United States. Using vzaar, eBay sellers can add video to their listings to showcase their products and gain a competitive edge. The core service is available to all users for no charge. Special features tailored to the needs of PowerSellers are available for a low monthly fee.

So, when you're not tied up with all that buying, selling, accounting, weighing, packing, shipping, moving, mailing, cleaning, feedback, paperwork and other chores...

...take a few moments and make a video! ;-)