miles_feigenbaum___dallas_ Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 I've never had a paypal account. Beware of these dirtbags! email that arrived today- Dear valued PayPal? member: PayPal? is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of buyers and sellers. To protect the security of your account, PayPal employs some of the most advanced security systems in the world and our anti-fraud teams regularly screen the PayPal system for unusual activity. Recently, our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your account. In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement and to ensure that your account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited. Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved. This is a fraud prevention measure meant to ensure that your account is not compromised. In order to secure your account and quickly restore full access, we may require some specific information from you for the following reason: We would like to ensure that your account was not accessed by an unauthorized third party. Because protecting the security of your account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection. Case ID Number: PP-833-714-621 We encourage you to log in and restore full access as soon as possible. Should access to your account remain limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations on the use of your account. However, failure to restore your records will result in account suspension.Please update your records on or before July 02, 2005. Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal session will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. To verify and/or update your account records click on the following link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure meant to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience. Sincerely, PayPal? Account Review Department PayPal Email ID PP2306 Visit our Privacy Policy and User Agreement if you have any questions. http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_privacy-outside Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maury_cohen Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 Miles, These don't originate with Paypal. Those of us who receive lots of e-mail are familiar with these scam e-mails from a variety of sources that look like they're from real sites such as e-maby, banks, etc. Unless you're familiar with the sender you should ignore and delete such messages without opening them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
art_haykin Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 Anyone not recognizing that one as a scam has been on another planet for several years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
art_haykin Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 FWIW, this particular phishing trip, one of 1000s, was reported in 2004. PayPal and ALL the others are WELL aware of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barefoot Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 Interesting. The address they gave you to click on is a https address (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run). If the scammers have found a way around that level of security we're all fecked. Maybe you had a paypal account and forgot about it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelging Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 Miles , I recieved 3 of these emails in the past week, and they are getting more official looking. When they give you a link to click on that says www.ebay.fraud/security or something like that put your cursor on the link for a second.I have found that a whole other email address will come up as to the place where you are really being sent.This address is usally in another country. Ebay or Paypal will never ask you for this kind of information in a email.Paypal asks that you forward the email without opening any attachments to spoof@paypal.com and they will try and get the people shut down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maiken Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 <p>In HTML mail, clickable text that purports to be a link to one place may be a link to somewhere entirely different. If you think about it, you are well aware of this fact, since if I write: <p><a href="http://www.photo.net">Click here for Photo.net</a> <p>...you are not surprised that clicking takes you to Photo.net. But I can make the text of the link anything! This link is, presumably, more surprising: <p><a href="http://www.photo.net">https://secure.ebay.com/accountVerify</a> <p>Try the second link... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barefoot Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 Fair point Mark, If Miles had clicked on the https address and it had taken him to a https site would that be a guarantee of security (just asking) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 Scams are as old as mankind. Scams with Faxes and mail are many decades old. With Ebay and Paypal; they are as old as ebay and Paypal. Here I have received many THOUSANDS of them. They are just all junk; spam. There is a things called spam and junk mail that are old too. Each year a few folks get lured in to scams; just like the Nigerian princes that want died; and their heirs want to split some cash with you. The story goes back about 3 or 4 decades. Other common lures are fake Police and Fire folks asking for donations; folks who panhandle and one day are ex Navy; next day ex marine; the next week ex korean war; except they were born in the 1950s; after the korean war. Other scams are some folks claim to save the planet with saving the XXX; and fleece old folks for cash; and none goes towards any good; but flash cars. Some retirement planners have been caught as cons; bilking their clients funds. When I was in college; they changed the math and engineering books every year it seemed; they books store would buy them back for about nothing; and then ship them to another school. they made more on used books; than new ones; and paid the professors under the table to change books. The fake charities that call; the 3 or 4 megabytes of spam each day gets old. Here I get about 10 fake Ebay or Paypals a day; the ebay ones were very active when Clinton was in office even. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith turrill Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 I got the exact same phishing scam several months ago. Do not ever follow the direct links in an e-mail concerning a bank or credit card company. Shut the e-mail down and close your e-mail program. Many of the major banks and credit card companies have had the exact same problem. If using the internet, start a new session and look up the company (www.paypal.com) on Google or Yahoo. In general, legitimate financial institutions do not solicit accout information by e-mail. The real PayPal website has a link for reporting scammers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maiken Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 <p>Stuart asks: <p><i>If Miles had clicked on the https address and it had taken him to a https site would that be a guarantee of security (just asking)</i> <p>If you end up at an https:// site, you can be assured that your interactions <i>with that site</i> are confidential, but not that you wound up at the site you thought you were going to! <p>In other words, if I'm determined to phish for PayPal account information, I may set up an HTTPS server and direct you to it, and ask you to enter your PayPal account information. Your interaction with my scam server is encrypted and reliably private. But that doesn't mean it would be a good idea to enter your PayPal account information! <p>Before entering any account information, you should examine the URL displayed at the top of your browser to make sure you are at the site you are expecting to be at. If you believe you are visiting EBay but the URL doesn't mention EBay anywhere, you have a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miles_feigenbaum___dallas_ Posted June 28, 2005 Author Share Posted June 28, 2005 This is funny! Actually I have NEVER used paypal and don't buy stuff off the auction sites, not worth the potential trouble as far as i'm concerned. I just didn't want one of the uninformed friends at photo.net to get suckered in as I think all the photo.net folks are extended 'family'. When is someone going to come out with a device to send about 50,000 volts back to these senders computers... one can always dream... Have a good evening y'all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spearhead Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 <i>Actually I have NEVER used paypal and don't buy stuff off the auction sites, </i><p> That's because it's like spam, they're sent to millions of addresses. I've never used or needed Viagra, but that hasn't stopped all the offers to sell it to me. Music and Portraits Blog: Life in Portugal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frank_skomial Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 The best is to ignore it by deleting. You could Right Mouse Click on the suspicious link, and a drop down dialog menu will open. Select Property menu from the bottom of the list, and a dialog will open showing you a real link. However, you may never know what a real link might be or what is bogus, so the best is to just delete it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivan_dzo Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 I got seven different paypal scams today in my in box. Their spelling is atrocious, that's what upsets me most! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landrum Kelly Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 These "phishing" expeditions are not new, but my sense is that they are becoming more frequent--or maybe I've just been spending too much time on eBay looking for a lens hood or an old TLR or something else. You don't have to spend a fortune on such sites to get on somebody's mailing list. In any case, obvious as they may be, they catch plenty of unsuspecting souls unawares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billy_sprague Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 snipped >>I've never used or needed Viagra, but that hasn't stopped all the offers to sell it to me.<< Me either. Although those penis enlargement ads....:-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miles_feigenbaum___dallas_ Posted June 29, 2005 Author Share Posted June 29, 2005 do they sell an anti-viagra pill.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 Today I got REAL email from PayPal. Now <em>that</em> is news. I get the bogus ones every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heller_harris Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 The problem comes when Paypal tries to contact you with a real complaint. If you don't respond to three emails, then you forfeit the complaint and they'll take the money out of your account. The real emails look just like the phonies... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitmstr Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 These SPOOFS emails are very common. However, the text or the sender field don't tell you who the *real* originator is. To see the originating server, etc... you must (if using OUTLOOK) select the offending message, righ-click on it and click on OPTIONS. This will give you are TEXT list of all the *HEADERS*. This information is useful for Server administrators to track the senders. COPY that info and forward it, along with the orignal message, to the REAL website. In this case PayPal. They want to know about these a it helps fighting the continous stream of SPOOFS. The most common are PayPal, Ebay, verious Banks and Credi Cards. Of course, had Congress killed the spam act this would be a LOT easier to defeat. Whereas now, with everyone spamming, it's a lot more difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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