Phishers target eBay customers via live chat support

U.K.-based ISP Netcraft is warning users about phishers impersonating eBay’s live chat support feature in the hopes of getting their hands on eBay users’ login, personal and financial information.

The ISP blocked the bogus site offering the fraudulent service, but says that others might easily pop up.

In this particular case, the phishers were using a third-party live chat service provided by Volusion, and the fraudulent chat window was, at first, showing the eBay logo.

The eBay branding later disappeared from the site, and was replaced by a place-holder company logo, which means that the phishers can easily impersonate any of the other companies that outsource their live chat support. The fact that Volusion’s services have a valid SSL certificate could also make many victims believe that they are dealing with a legitimate service.

“The agent providing ‘support’ claimed that the chat was accessed by clicking a live chat button in eBay’s order confirmation email. When Netcraft attempted to question the legitimacy of the live chat, the agent immediately disconnected,” they shared.

They advise users to always only access live chats from companies’ own sites (and not from links contained in emails), and to never share sensitive information such as passwords or PINs in live chats, because a legitimate company would not require this information.