I received some e-mail from e-bay, advising that my account would be
suspended unless I updated my personal information. The linked site
is: http://ebay-inform.com/ws/SecurityMeasures.php

Is this legitimate? 

I suspect not, as it doesn't use SSL (encryption) and requests the
credit card's 4 digit PIN.

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Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 31 Aug 2005 14:16 PDT

What is in the subject line of the email?

Rainbow~

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Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 31 Aug 2005 14:29 PDT

Hi eppy,

Please take a look at this site which should help:

http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/internet/phishing/index/ebay.shtml

Best regards,
Rainbow

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Clarification of Question by eppy-ga on 31 Aug 2005 14:30 PDT

Subject line is: Message ID 7300xxxx - Client's Details Confirmation

message text includes:

eBay sent this message to member of ebay
Your registered name is included to show this message originated from
eBay. Learn more.
	Ebay Security -- Security Service Notification 	
eBay sent this message on behalf of an eBay member via My Messages.
Responses sent using email will go to the eBay member directly and
will include your email address. Click the Respond Now button below to
send your response via My Messages (your email address will not be
included).

Dear Customer ,

For the User Agreement, Section 9, we may immediately issue a warning,
temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership
and refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your
actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users
or us. We may also take these actions if we are unable to verify or
authenticate any information you provide to us.

We regret to inform you that your eBay account could be suspended if
you don't re-update your account information. To resolve this problems
please use the link below and re-enter your account information. If
your problems could not be resolved your account will be suspended for
a period of 24 hours, after this period your account will be
terminated. .
Due to the suspension of this account, please be advised you are
prohibited from using eBay in any way. This includes the registering
of a new account. Please note that this suspension does not relieve
you of your agreed-upon obligation to pay any fees you may owe to
eBay.

Dear eppy-ga,
 
You quite right to be wary. It is a scam.
The domain name was only created on 29-aug-2005 and registered to a
Dan Darlack of California which is probably a false name.

Created:      29-Aug-2005
domain:       ebay-inform.com
owner:        Dan Darlak
country:      US
http://www.whois.sc/ebay-inform.com

You are also quite right to note that it does not use SSL encryption
and the padlock does not appear at the bottom of the browser screen.

This email is just a variation of a phishing scam regarding Ebay accounts.

These genuine Ebay pages will give you some advice.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/questions/email-authenticity.html
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/isgw-account-theft-spoof.html

Other sources:
http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/report/591
"We regret to inform you that your eBay account could be suspended "
://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22We+regret+to+inform+you+that+your+eBay+account+could+be+suspended+%22&hl=en&lr=&start=0&sa=N


I hope this answers your question. If it does not, or the answer is
unclear, then please ask for clarification of this research before
rating the answer. I shall respond to the clarification request as
soon as I receive it.
Thank you
answerfinder

Thanks for your excellent sleuthing skills - also to rainbow-ga

Dear eppy-ga,
Thank you for the tip. Pleased I could help.
answerfinder-ga

This is interesting, is there an imediate way to tell a domain from a
subdomain? For instance Google.com and answeres.google.com  as
supposed to ebay.com and  ebay-inform.com.

elids-ga,
Sub domains have a full stop in front of the domain name e.g. answers.google.com
Hypens are allowed as part of the domain name.

Yes, sub-domains go from right to left, always using a period (.) not
a hyphen as a separator.

answers.google.com is a sub-domain of google.com, however a site names
google-aswers.com would be an entirely separate domain name.

In the same respect, ebay could have a legitimate sub-domain of
inform.ebay.com but ebay-inform.com is entirely separate.

Great! thank you both eppy and answerfinder