Email title:
“Messge[sic] from eBay”

Email body:

“Dear eBay Member,
This is your official notification from eBay. Your online has expired.
If you want to continue using our service you have to renew your online.
If not, your online will be limited and deleted.
To confirm your Account records click on the following link:

[link removed]

Thank you,
Scott R. Shipman, CIPP Senior Counsel, Global Privacy Practices eBay Inc."

Help! Help! I don’t want eBay to limit and delete my online! I must respond forthwith to this very official looking email!

The signature details seemed a little unusual for a phishing expedition, so I hit everyone’s favourite agent of climate change. Surprisingly, Scott Shipman really is the name of eBay’s Senior Counsel. Quite why eBay would need someone so senior to send out an automated message is, well, a further sign that this might be another mildly inaccurate email notification.

Googling Scott Shipman sure does bring up a lot of sites telling you about phishing attacks! But he also makes an appearance as a speaker at a Government of California identity theft summit, titled “Protecting Privacy Online”.

I find it rather amusing that, in an attempt to appear more official, this inept phisher inserted such a big red flag into his message.