How to Tell If You Have Found a Legitimate eBay Website

Don't get cheated out of your hard-earned money; know what a legitimate eBay website looks like.

eBay is one of the most popular and widely used websites in the world. Because of this, many fraudulent and scamming websites try to imitate eBay's look and design in order to obtain your personal banking details. The key to avoiding online fraud through such sites is to look for signs that the website you are visiting is legitimate and trustworthy.

Things You'll Need

• Computer with Internet connection

Instructions

1. Check the website's address in your browser's address bar. Legitimate eBay websites will always have "ebay.com" immediately before the first forward slash ("/") and will never include symbols, numbers or dashes as part of its web name. Some examples of fake eBay web addresses might be "http://signin.ebay.com@10.19.32.4/" or "http://signin-ebay.com/".

2. Know what a legitimate eBay sign-in website looks like. This is where scammers will try to do the most damage and extract sensitive information from you. eBay will never ask for banking details on a login page and the web address will always begin with "https://signin.ebay.com/..."

   For a list of legitimate country-by-country sign-in addresses, see the eBay Signing In link in the References section.

3. Check the look and feel of the website. Make sure that the logo is exactly the same as eBay's current logo and that the spelling and grammar of the website is consistent, correct and fluent. A lot of illegal and counterfeit websites are poor English translations and can be easily spotted with a little proofreading.

4. Invest in some anti-phishing software. These programs inform you if a site is trying to obtain sensitive information from you illegally. Nearly all anti-phishing programs work in real time and will inform you immediately through your browser if a website is safe and trustworthy. See the Resources section for some links to reputable anti-phishing programs.

5. Trust your instincts. If a website seems even the slightest bit counterfeit or fraudulent, then you are probably right. If you are in doubt, you can always log in to your account through eBay's legitimate homepage: type "www.ebay.com" into your Internet browser's address bar and continue from there.

Tips & Warnings

• Look out for misspelled domain names. Many fake websites will buy domain names that resemble ebay.com: for example, ebaye.com, ebau.com etc.

References

• eBay: Beware Of Fake Websites Pretending To Be eBay
• eBay: Look For Legitimate Web Addresses When Signing In
• Technospot: How To Spot A Fake Web Site -- Phishing
• Report Online Scams: How To Spot A Fake Website

Resources

• Anti-Phishing Working Group
• PC Mag: Free Antivirus And Antispyware