inluminent

Over Labr Day weekend, I went to Tahoe with a buddy to shoot a wedding. It was my first real paid photography gig. Mind you we weren’t getting paid in cash, but we were getting a free 4 day trip to Lake Tahoe over a long weekend. Regardless, the experience was awesome, and, upon my return, I was totally psyched about buying some new lenses for my camera, so that I could upgrade my craft.

(I’m totally sold on the idea that “the difference between a good photo and a great photo is good glass” now)

So, I headed over to eBay last Tuesday, and started bidding. I usually bid on items early in their auction lifecycle, so I can just check “My eBay” to see how the auction is progressing, and jump in at the last minute with my real highest bid, before the auction closes.

I’m not doing that anymore, and I’m totally done with eBay as a buyer at this point.

You might ask “why is that John?”

The reason I’m done with eBay is because on each of the auctions I was bidding, I didn’t win, and as a consequence, I received a “Second Chance” offer to buy the item after the auction closed because “the winning bidder couldn’t pay.”

On receipt of the first offer, I thought “wow, that’s cool, I got a great deal on that lens”. Realize my bid had been about $800 on a lens that retails for close the $1,800. I couldn’t believe I got to buy the lens.

So, I went to eBay by typing in the address into my browser, and logged into My eBay to check the auction there, and something weird was happening… I wasn’t able to find a way to pay for the item I’d “won” as a Second Chance winner…

So, I read through lots of help documents on eBay’s website, and I was pretty sure at that point I was the recipient of a phishing attack.

So, I forwarded the email to spoof@ebay.com, and sure enough, it was an attack.

What was weird was the fact that the person phishing me knew exactly what I’d bid, and had emailed me at my eBay email address… and had sent me a very professional looking copy of an actual eBay “Second Chance” winner email offer.

I’d been duped.

Once, I can forgive, but, over the past week, I’ve gotten 20 or so “Second Chance” phishing emails. Sometimes two or three on each auction I’d been bidding on.

I forwarded them all to eBay, but somehow I just don’t trust that they’ll actually fix the problem, and I’m not going to put myself at risk by trying to buy something again… It’s just not worth the hassle or time. Not for big ticket items at least.

And the sad thing, is I was thinking of selling some football tickets I have for a game this year that I should be able to sell for a nice $200 or $300 profit per seat on eBay, but, now I’m totally thinking of selling those on something like StubHub instead.

Yeah, eBay, you’ve lost one customer… and that’s the problem. The domino’s start falling with one little push.

eBay really needs to lock down the bidding history and email addresses of their users better. I’m done with .