If you receive an email that asks you to click a link and fill in personal information on a website, be very careful, even if the message claims to be from a well-known company like eBay. If you get an email like this, sign in to My eBay and click the Messages tab. If the message isn't there, it's not from us.

If you get a fake email that claims to be from eBay, forward it to spoof@ebay.com

If you find a fake website that is trying to steal personal information, report it by emailing the URL to phishing-report@us-cert.gov

If you aren't sure whether a website is legitimate, these tips can help:

Watch out for fake web addresses (URLs) Even if the web address contains the word "eBay", it might not be an eBay website. Real eBay web addresses have ".ebay.com/" in them. There won't be anything between the period and "ebay" and there won't be anything after the ".com" and the first forward slash (/). Examples of real eBay addresses: http://pages.ebay.com/help/index.html http://hub.ebay.com/community https://signin.ebay.com/ Examples of fake addresses: http://signin.ebay.com@10.19.32.4/ (this address has something between the ".com" and the forward slash) http://page.@ebay.com (this address has an at sign (@) between the period and "ebay") http://signin-ebay.com/ (this address contains "-ebay.com", not ".ebay.com") If you're signing in with your eBay user ID and password, check that the web address starts with https://signin.ebay.com/. Look for the "s" in "https," which indicates that you're signing in to a secure server.

When in doubt, start at the eBay home page If you want to visit a page where you need to enter personal information, start at the eBay home page. Type www.ebay.com in your browser and go from there. Tip: Be sure to keep your web browser up-to-date. The latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox have built-in tools to protect you.