Is there a Yahoo Service for financial transactions?

Fraudulent sell at yahoo.

• A few days ago I placed a bid on yahoo! auctions but lost it. The day after I got several emails from different people (mainly from Italy) saying that they could offer me the same article I bid for significantly less money. I replied to one of them and asked about conditions and security. He answered the transaction was through yahoo auctions and he has an account with $5000 and they would be responsible for all negative consequences (even they would give me a refund if something went wrong. Also, he claims that the shipment will be made through UPS. He will put the product with UPS, UPS then will send me a confirmation saying that the product is ready to be shipped when they get the approval after my payment. I gave this person my address and I already got 2 confirmation emails, one from yahoo another from ups: Yahoo email came from: [email protected] UPS email came from [email protected] The UPS email says: This message was sent to you at the request of Ionut Paunoiu to notify you that information related to the following shipment will be shipped to you by UPS, but we will not proceed the order until we get the confirmation from the seller that has been paid. Yahoo email says among other things: 3. Seller Marian Enache ([email protected]) has been verified by Yahoo Shopping Auctions and there is no problem in dealing with him. 4.Yahoo Shopping Auctions allows the buyer to pay the seller using Western Union service as the seller solicited! 5.Has an account ($5000) at us and if something will go wrong. Yahoo Shopping Auctions will responsible for all negative consequence of this transaction! I?ve looked in yahoo and UPS but couldn?t find infor about these people or this kind of transactions. Are these emails valid? How can I verify this is not a fraudulent person/transaction? Is there any information regarding these emails or history of frauds using this scheme? How it is possible that I got a ups/yahoo email if this is not for real? On the other hand, is it possible I just got a good deal?

• Answer:

  Julio, Thank you for having the foresight to run a check on the emails you received. I can assure you that they did not originate from Yahoo or UPS, but are instead, fraudulent messages designed to look legitimate, and to part you from your money. As I said earlier -- do not send these people any money, or any information. They are out to rob you. You received two emails -- one claiming to be from Yahoo, one from UPS -- assuring you that there are "no problems" in the transaction you are considering. Note that both the emails begin similarly, with the text: "aw-confirm..." aw-confirm is a fairly well-known scam that has mostly focused on ebay customers, but is now apparently expanding its horizons. A site called Fraud Watch International has a "Fraud Alert" posted on the aw-confirm scam at: http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/fraud_alerts/040103_ebay.htm ===== FRAUD ALERT eBay phishing email - "[email protected]" Date Issued: January 03 2004 eBay customers are the target of the latest 'phishing' emails. This message is NOT from eBay. ===== More recently, messages have begun appearing warning of aw-confirm spoofing Yahoo: http://lists.sosdg.org/pipermail/sosdg-nanab/2004-March/001110.html ===== Cgi1-yahoo.com has been Terminated off Hostingbyregister.com Mar 29, 2004 The domain cgi1-yahoo.com has been terminated off Hostingbyregister.com for spoofing yahoo.com (http://cgi1-yahoo.com/secure/) effective today March 29, 2004 at 1 PM... X-Originating-IP: [194.102.90.39] From: aw-confirm at yahoo.com ===== In both cases, the messages were "phishing" -- attempting to get the recipient to click on a website link, and enter sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and passwords. So the scam is a bit different than the one you received, but the scammers look pretty familiar, either because they are the same individuals responsbile for the earlier aw-confirm scams, or because they are mimicing those scams. You should report the fraudulent email to Yahoo, as they may very well take action against the perpetrators. A form for reporting Impersonations (emails masquarading as if they came from Yahoo) can be found here: ===== http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/mail/cgi_abuse Please use this form to report suspected issues of harassment or impersonation to the Yahoo! Mail Abuse Team. ===== Be sure to provide them the full details of the message you received that appeared to come from Yahoo, including the email message headers (the Yahoo page includes instructions for copying the full headers). ===== UPS also has a page warning customers about fraudulent use of the UPS name: ===== http://www.ups.com/content/cy/en/about/news/fraud_use.html Fraudulent Usage of UPS Name and Brand Service Update UPS has become aware of increasing fraudulent activity through the misappropriation of the UPS name and brand. ===== UPS asks that you contact them through the contact information provided for the country you live in. For the US, the contact information page is here: http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/contact/index.html I hope this provides you enough information to convince you of the fraudulent nature of these emails, and to take steps to report them. If you find you need additional information, please let me know how I can help you further. Just post a Request for Clarification, and I'm at your service. All the best, pafalafa-ga search strategy: Google searches on: aw-confirm aw-confirmation email (scam OR fraud OR impersonation OR hoax)