I got an email that I believe is a scam that came from: aw-confirm@ebay.com
How can a scammer send something from this address?
They can’t. If you use the “Reveal Full Headers” function on your browser, you should see that it’s actually coming from elsewhere, and only appears to be coming from aw-confirm@ebay.com.
It’s very easy to do, but I don’t think anyone is going to pop in here and give step-by-step instructions about how to spoof an email address.
Faking the From: line on an e-mail is trival. Since most mail programs trust the from line you’ll see whatever is put there.
You can establish the real route the message took and, therefore, it’s origin from examining the full headers (under View/Options from a message window in Outlook). Although these can be faked to be malicious or misbehaving mail gateways.
SD
SMTP, or Simple Mail Transport Protocol, the protocol used to send e-mail on the Internet, was formalized in a far more trusting era. It relies on the sender to properly identify themselves. I could send you a message from Bill.Gates@microsoft.com if I wanted to. Well, I could if I knew your e-mail address.
If you look in the header of the message you’ll see that the message didn’t really come from ebay.com.
Whoops. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
Look at the actual message header. Chances are the scammer simply spoofed the FROM field, which is very easy to do. However, the actual originating email server address will still be embedded in the header, as follows:
If the bolded parts aren’t from an eBay server, then it’s a scam.
Ok, that’s all I wanted to know. I wasn’t looking for insructions. What you all explain is indeed the case with my email. Thanks.
You can forward the message to spoof@ebay.com so they can investigate the scammer.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/isgw-account-theft-spoof.html