READ THIS! Another PayPal scam

Published on April 4, 2004 By grayhaze In WinCustomize Talk

If you received an email, seemingly from PayPal support, telling you that you need to verify your account within the next 5 days, don't do it!

I have to admit that I almost fell for it myself, even with the knowledge of previous PayPal scams. The email is that convincing.

If you do end up completing the process this email describes, you'll not only lose control of your account, but also any funds you have and any credit cards attached to the account.

For your reference, here are the guidelines of fraudulent emails from the PayPal site:

Please use the following tips to stay safe with PayPal:

safe Log-in: to log in to your PayPal account or access the PayPal website, open a new web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer or Netscape) and type in the following: https://www.paypal.com/

Greeting: emails from PayPal will address you by your first and last name or the business name associated with your PayPal account. Fraudulent emails often include the salutation "Dear PayPal User" or "Dear PayPal Member"

Email Attachments: PayPal emails will never ask you to download an attachment or a software program. Attachments contained in fraudulent emails often contain viruses that may harm your computer or compromise your PayPal account.

Request for Personal Information: If we require information from you, we will notify you in an email and request that you enter the information only after you have safely and securely logged in to your PayPal account.

Often, fraudulent emails will request details such as your full name, account password, credit card number, bank account, PIN number, Social Security Number, or mother's maiden name.

If you think that you have received a fraudulent email (or fake website), please forward the email (or URL address) to spoof@paypal.com and then the email from your mailbox. Never click any links or attachments in a suspicious email.

I realise this is probably old news to the majority of people here, but it makes sense to spread word as much as possible.

Comments

werewolf

on Apr 04, 2004

Somebody's phishing. This stuff is just going to get worse. groan. I just read an article on spim (spamming IM apps), the author is of the opinion that spim is going to, eventually, be as bad as spam.

What a world, what a world.

sig101

on Apr 04, 2004

Both viruses and scams are increasingly clever in their social engineering to get people to open attachments or use their links in scam emails to look alike sites to provide personal info. Such scam emails have been noted for eBay, PayPal, Amazon, and various banks.

So best for people not to use links in such emails but if they have any questions, forward the emails to the appropriate company (for example, eBay has spoof @ ebay.com and I think paypal also has spoof @ paypal.com to send such suspicious emails to) and see what they say. And if anyone wants to check their account go to the site directly either through bookmarks or by typing in the url to the home site, not through links in an email.
[Message Edited]

Sput

on Apr 04, 2004

...I've thought about trying to render such "phishing" tactics less usefull by having automated 'junk' information flood such attempts to harvest info to try and protect innocents who might put in their valid data....It's not my job, and is in a grey area legaly so I've not done anything about it, but it would be good if someone would.

Black hats will continue to abuse the systems as long as there is easy profit in it - to stop them, it has to be made more difficult to get useful info from people, and flooding them with junk (as long as it were done well enough to prevent easy filtering out) could be one such counter measure.

sig101

on Apr 05, 2004

Better to report it to the company whose site is being phished. They will take steps to have the phony sites shut down.

Sput

on Apr 05, 2004

Yep...I've done that for various Bank scam phish e-mails I've seen.

Has anyone else noticed how they tend to deviously send most of these things late on a Friday afternoon too? Seems it's part of the social engineering as people at work will tend to think "Oh! I'd best do that before I go home" and then not think about it till after the weekend. That way, they can maximize the time they have to exploit the info, and the bank/paypal etc has less staff (I assume) to take steps against them too....

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