Ebay update personal data NOT A SCAM BUT you need to KNOW WHY!

I just received an email from Ebay telling me it’s a good idea to update my info for security.  I’m not sure I’m going to change anything except my password (which is good to update with some frequency AND ALWAYS ALWAYS use a complex password of longer than 16 characters (I’m up to 24 now and Word press is taking even longer now than this!).

So the real question is “HOW DO I (that’s you) KNOW IT’S NOT A SCAM???”.  As some of you, our anti-scam community have pointed out:

1. Not authoritative but a good sign is it has YOUR FULL NAME in the email, as addressed to you!  When mine say just Barry, that’s a red flag!
2. check the email address the message is coming from:

   A) If you get an email from a company, mine, Ebay, Amazon and the address is hotmail, gmail or some other of the many public email addresses, you can be assured, it’s a fake email.

   This email, when you hit reply to look at it, says “@ebay.com” in the address (ebay@ebay.com), that’s a valid company address.

   B) Watch out for distorted addresses, such as ebaystore.com or funebay.com, that would not be from Ebay, and something to watch out for.

    

3. Check the address shown in the link or button provided:

   A) In this email, it has a button and I always recommend “DON’T PUSH THE BUTTON”! It’s so easy just to type the address in to your browser and avoid clicking an unsafe link.

   B) You can, WITHOUT CLICKING, put your mouse OVER the button or link and in the bottom of the screen, see the address the link or button actually go to. Here you would look for the address they want to take you, and if that address is not “www.ebay.com/{something}, but instead goes to some unknown “www.who knows what with ebay in it or not.com/{something}, it’s not from ebay, it’s a scam!

   This email, the link was from ebay as it had www.ebay.com/{something} and I wouldn’t click it anyways because I do not click buttons or links that come in emails!

   So there you have it my anti-scam community, how to know you have a good email from one of the good guys and not a scam.

   Here is that good, not scam email:

Get a higher level of protection Hi Barry, It’s been more than a year since you last updated your personal info. Keeping your personal info up to date can help better protect your account. Sound like a good idea? All you have to do is go to eBay and take a look at your personal info to confirm that it’s still correct. If you updated your personal info recently, please ignore this reminder. Protect your account Sincerely, The eBay Accounts Team