Friday, July 27, 2007

New Phorm Phor Phishing?

I have been getting telephone calls purporting to be from eBay. The calls are automated (female voice) and generally go like this:

Robotic voice: "Your PIN number is 1181. Your PIN number is 1181.Your PIN number is 1181. You've now completed the telephone portion of this process. Please return to eBay to continue. You may need to sign in again if you've signed out. Goodbye."

The calls come from a variety of different numbers but always from the 847 exchange. I have recorded a variety of sources including (847) 709 0211 and (847) 709 0211. Despite several calls to eBay to warn them, they don't seem to be interested in this. At first they denied the problem exists but have since realized it is happening.

So what is this form of phishing? I suspect someone has tapped into a phone line somewhere and has direct dialing capabilities and the ability to mask the true number of origin. I haven't figured out how they potentially compromise the victim's username and password unless they count on people hitting auto call-back then hit them with a "to validate who you are I have to ask you some questions...".


Anyone else get one of these? Anyone else perplexed by why eBay is not interested in getting the exact time, date, and return number of the call so they can trace where it comes from?

File this one under general weirdness...

4 comments:

  1. I've got the exact same problem.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm located in canada & have received many of these calls at all hours. After contacting one of our phone service provders I found the service provider to this # is called XO in Elk Grove, IL there # is 1-800-421-3872. I tried calling to complain they said they would call the people & the calls should stop, ya right.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I guess I should send another email to eBay to let them know. I have verbally heard from many people with similar calls. eBay really didn't seem interested in this at all. I guess until some accounts are compromised it is merely an annoyance more than anything else.

    Anyone guess what the purpose is?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just sent the following message to eBay:

    "There has been a huge rash of fake telephone calls in Canada from people reportedly from eBay. I notified you before and urge you to look into this. The entire report is at http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-phorm-phor-phishing.html

    It appears to be some form of phishing, possibly by someone who has gained access to a PBX box. Can you please confirm whether or not you want to investigate further? If you do, I will continue to log the phone numbers the call originates form along with time and date of the calls."

    ReplyDelete

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