Warning - Fake Paypal E-mails
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TV ClubHouse: Archive: Warning - Fake Paypal E-mails

Ryn

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 12:35 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Perhaps this has been discussed elsewhere - but today I got a second (and very convincing) fake e-mail about paypal. I had been getting other fake ones for the past couple weeks about how my account was going to be terminated if I didn't do such and such - but this one was even more devious - here is a screen cap of part of it.

paypalscam

If you get this letter DON'T click on any links or do anything. Do what I did and go directly to paypal.com (by typing in the URL yourself) and check your account. Mine had no mention of this "random" thing. I also followed paypals instructions and forwarded the offending mail to the account they gave me.

Ryn

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 12:42 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Just an FYI - the other fake paypal e-mail I have been getting reads in part like this:

Dear PayPal member,

PayPal would like to inform you about some important information regarding your PayPal account. This account, which is associated with the email address

(my e-mail addy was here)

will be expiring within five business days. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause, but this is occurring because all of our customers are required to update their account settings with their personal information.


The mail included an attatchment with the extension "scr" - thats generally a screensaver and was surely a virus (I didn't open it to find out).

Dallasbbfan

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 01:50 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
OMG! These look real. Thanks for posting the info Ryn.

Kimmo

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 02:16 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Oh, great. I feel huge wave of dread washing over me!

I wonder if I linked to that convincing one? I don't even use PayPal anymore so since the first hoax, I've been trying to just delete PayPal stuff....Ack!

Twiggyish

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 03:22 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I've gotten that one twice now. Last year I forwarded one of those messages over to Paypal. They have a security department.

The second one I didn't even open.

Thanks for posting this!!!

Yankee_In_Ca

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 04:03 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Here's a news article from today that mentions these type of emails, as well as other online crimes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5934-2003Dec16.html

Reiki

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 04:10 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I always send information on this kind of scam to my State Attorney General too. They need to be aware of this kind of fraud. I have always gotten a nice thank you message from them in appreciation. New York is very lucky in having Eliot Spitzer as our AG.

Tabbyking

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 05:13 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
i got two purportedly from eBay this last week, but knew better...besides, i think an american company knows to spell 'response' correctly, and not r-e-s-p-o-n-c-e.

Julieboo

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 05:23 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
AOL.com scams? Anyone been involved? My dh actually has to close a bank account cuz somehow AOL got a hold of his checking acct. number. We have never even had aol. I just don't get it. They keep trying to charge us 19.99 a month. They even have called us (before they automatically took it out of his account) threatening to send a collection agency at us. It is so frustrating. Anyone know how to prove we don't have aol and never have? Anyone heard of this before?

Grannyg

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 05:55 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I've gotten two of the ebay emails and one of the Paypal. The first ebay email I got I thought was the real deal but when I started putting in the info, they were asking for info that I thought they just didn't need so I x'd out of it and didn't send it. But I did click on the link. I went to ebay and found out about the fake emails, so I then sent it to ebay. After that I knew they were all fakes but I still send them every time I get one. It really does scare you that someone could get all that info.

Twiggyish

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 06:01 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
It gets worse! I attended a Fraud Seminar recently.
* Never give out your SS number online.
There are fake ads for legitimate companies. For example: Free credit reports. The ad looks like the real company. It's not! It's a scam.
There are fake ads for mortgage companies, too. While we know there are legitimate mortgage companies online, the scam artists are placing ads that LOOK exactly like the legitimate company's ads.
* Never respond to an email to buy anything. If you want to purchase something go directly to that website..not by clicking on the email link.

Scorpiomoon

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 07:25 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Man, those PayPal e-mails are a pain the butt.

But whoever is sending out those eBay e-mails is really freakin' aggressive. I've gotten several of them.

Carrie92

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 11:43 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Lovely. I just made my first ever purchase on eBay a few days ago, and signed up with PayPal to pay it.
So, I should just ignore any emails I get from them and go directly to my account on PayPal?

Scorpiomoon

Thursday, December 18, 2003 - 12:50 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Carrie: Yep. I think you should go there directly.

Faerygdds

Thursday, December 18, 2003 - 07:23 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Always always always go to paypal directly if you get an e-mail. If it's legit, then your first screen once you login will have the same request. If it's NOT (which is most likely), then you are safe.

Always always always go DIRECTLY to paypal... :)

Cathie

Thursday, December 18, 2003 - 07:50 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I have received two emails this week supposedly from 1-800-Flowers confirming my order for 32 dozen roses to be billed to my AOL account, for a total cost of $93 (heck, if they could send 32 DOZEN roses for $93 that would be a bargain!) It included a link to go to if this order was placed in error. The link takes you to a web site that looks just like 1-800-Flowers but has a different URL at the top. I quickly backed out of the site and forwarded the email to both AOL and 1-800-Flowers. 1-800-Flowers responded with a nice thank you for bringing this to our attention, we have had many reports, etc...so if you get a bill like this DO NOT GO TO THE LINKED SITE to "cancel" your order, just forward the email to feedback@1800flowers.com.