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With the bad economy more and more people are starting to find the bargains at online auctions, especially on eBay.

Actually, I tend to buy almost everything I want or need from eBay. However, there are things to watch out for to be sure you don't get scammed

Before I even talk about how to buy safely from eBay, you should know about the various "phishing (pronounced "fishing") schemes" out there. When you sign up for an account at eBay or Pay Pal (eBay now owns Pay Pal) chances are good that you are going to eventually receive some e-mails that look exactly like they are from eBay or Pay Pal.

They will have some bogus message about how you need to verify the identity of your account or something similar. Or you may get an e-mail that looks to be from Pay Pal saying you have purchased some item and then it will read, "If you didn't make this purchase click here." And so on.

Here is the rule of thumb for all such e-mails.

Legitimate companies will never ask you to send personal information like this by clicking on a link in an e-mail. Instead, they will tell you to check into your account for messages. Bottom line, if you get an e-mail like this never never never click on a link in e-mail.

All this will do is take you to a screen that looks exactly like another eBay page or a Pay Pal screen, or what have you. Only it's bogus. When you put your information in there and hit send, you are actually transferring all your private information to a crook trying to capture this data.

So remember, bottom line, never ever click on an e-mail link to send any private information or even to check on an account. Instead, sign in to your account in question and check on the information there.

If there is no data there about the e-mail messages in question received, you can bet such e-mails are a scam. (And any e-mail that asks you to click on a link within the body of the e-mail to send any personal information is almost always a scam.)

In fact, eBay has a messaging center for each member under your "My eBay" page. Go there, click on messages and any legitimate message will appear there. You can also respond to messages from there.

If you receive an e-mail supposedly from eBay and it's not in your message center on your My eBay page, then that was a bogus copycat e-mail and it was never from eBay to begin with.

Most potential buyers already know to check on a seller's feedback on eBay before ordering. However, that system, unless you are dealing with a seller who has 100% feedback, may

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