Yeah it's a very real problem. Most of the spammers are from Romania using cell phones. I was in the market to buy something on ebay recently and found a great deal that turned out to be a spoof. I didn't bid, but being a spoof ad, it did peak my interest.

The scammer wanted the buyer to only contact him by email, so I did. He had the item in "ebays or SquareTrades warehouse" in the states. His pic directory was on AOL, fully loaded with all kinds of ebay items. Big suprise.

Western Union me the money! Ship free! FULL REFUND! I conversed awhile with the guy until I got bored, and then told him what was going on. I used readnotify.com for a free 15 day trial and had all his headers, language of computer, country of origin. Sent it all to spoof@ebay.com

Out of boredom, I searched some more on ebay and reported 500+ bogus auctions, using their internal email system to contact them. They even have a category for 'unauthorized account activity'. As quickly as I'd shut down an item, 15 mins later it would pop up again, usually a vehicle in a category like "embroidery".

It's a very real problem and these scammers are getting peoples ebay login/pw from those spoofed emails. Knowing how many newbies there are online, I can see how they get away with it. What amazed me was sometimes the real ebay ID had legitimate auctions running at the same time.

I lost all taste for ebay after that little investigation and don't think I'll ever use it again.