‘EBay’s fraud team ought to be keeping on top of this’

price. Those interested were to contact the user directly over email. Mr Barrett, 62, said the messages were almost identical and contained the same email address. He suspected a scam and contacted eBay. Eventually the ads got removed, he said, but they would soon reappear.

He said: “This has been going on since at least October last year. It’s clearly a problem but eBay doesn’t seem to be able to stop it.”

Mr Barrett, who teaches computing at a junior school, said eBay “didn’t seem to be that bothered” but he was concerned for new users of the service. Chris Underhill, ll, chief technical l officer at Equiniti niti Cyber Security, y, said there was a “massive fraud team” at eBay, which should be “keeping on top of this”. He said it wouldn’t be unreasonable for eBay to install software that detected text, such as email addresses, in images.

“You can hide all sorts of information in pictures but the technology that detects it is not that advanced,” Mr Underhill added. “It’s not difficult for eBay to implement this software.”

Telegraph Money reported how fraudsters used pictures to hide text on eBay in 2016 – yet fraudsters are still able to get away with it. Ms Miles said until eBay was forced to take responsibility for the scams, which would “hit it in its pocket”, the onus would be on users to keep themselves safe. Be suspi suspicious of items with unrea unrealistically low prices. If you are buying a car arrange to see it before paying paying. Walk away if the se seller refuses. Do Don’t email the selle seller directly, eve even if they off offer you an “off pla platform” price. Use eBay’s messaging service.

Be wary if the descriptive text is in a picture or screenshot. This is to stop buyers copying and pasting the text into a search engine to see if it has appeared elsewhere.

Google the email address to see if it’s been associated with a scam and report it to eBay if so.

Don’t pay by bank transfer, as the bank won’t refund you if things go wrong; neither will eBay. PayPal is safer. Vehicles are not covered by eBay’s money back guarantee.

The firm said it continually invested in new technology and “works hard to protect customers from criminals who attempt to attack the entire industry”. It claimed to use a “combination of online and human detection methods” but said criminals “continue to actively try to engage in online fraud” and on “very rare occasions make it beyond listing”.

An eBay spokesman said the site had “redoubled” efforts to help users protect themselves.

Colin Labouchere, who lost £ 1,500 to a scammer