TELECOM Digest Editor's Note:
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I can tell you this much: if it
> is something E-Bay is selling, I would generally stay away from it.
> That is, unless you want even more spam as a result. I have purchased
> _ONE_ item via E-Bay in my lifetime, a cellular phone which was not
> all that great, and I have been spammed ever since.
> The big thing now, it seems, is to send members
> of E-Bay's community 'partial' letters of complaint, with a link
> address to click on to respond. The partial letter says something like
> "That gizmo you sold me; when are you going to deliver it?" and the
> partial letter always goes on to say "E-Bay takes this complaint very
> seriously. Please respond direct to this member if you wish to retain
> your good standing with E-Bay." etcetera.
For what it's worth, I get those eBay-related spams in equal volume at email addresses that have never been used for eBay as I do at the one address that's eBay-registered. I suspect the spammers just send them to everyone, figuring enough people do use eBay that they might as well try. Same reason I get spoofs claiming to be banks I've never heard of or insurance companies in foreign countries. It's easier to spam everyone than to target the attack.
snipped-for-privacy@phred.org is Joshua Putnam
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your own bicycle frames. See
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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But, to Josh and Harold, what I said in my earlier note was that I _agree_ with both of you and with e-Bay. That company is not the source of the spam (except for their carelessness in leaving their customer list open for people to look at) and that the cheap, shoddy spam being sent out; but where most such establishments (including their own PayPal unit) reserve the email address 'spoof@' as a way to quickly cut-and-paste up that offensive crapola to send to their investigators, E-Bay does not even do that much. They use ' snipped-for-privacy@ebay.com' for some other purpose entirely. At least PayPal makes an effort to confront those fools and close them down. PAT]