The email starts out, "You have been selected by eBay for our special program regarding the war in IRAQ. Through this, eBay Inc. and associates with the help of the US Government, tries to bring hope in the hearts of the IRAQ people by asking members to make a $1 donation that will go into the IRAQ reconstruction funds."

If you've gotten an email like this, beware. It is a hoax. eBay is not offering users a chance to make a donation in exchange for free usage of its site, despite the email's urging: "Just click the following link to donate only $1 for an entire year of fee-free eBay!"

This is just one of many hoax emails making the rounds, promising rewards or warning users they will be suspended if they don't reply to the emails immediately to update their account information.

eBay and its subsidiary PayPal are frequent targets of hoax emails that target their users. Other targets have included financial institutions, government agencies and other ecommerce sites. The senders of these hoax emails, also known as phishing emails, attempt to trick recipients into revealing personal information that will be used by the scammers to commit identity theft.

Experts advise recipients to never click on a link in an email to sign-in to a site. Legitimate companies will never ask for personal or financial information in an email. More information is available at the AuctionBytes Fraud Resource Center and on eBay's site.

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/fraud

http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial