BS: Paypal scam warning

Subject: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 04:46 PM

This may have played before-

An email I received said I was reaching my limit in Paypal, and "so as not to be disappointed," please give the number of my bank account so that it could be drawn upon (Paypal has only my credit card data, since it is protected).

I checked my Paypal account, and they allow me much more than I would ever want to spend- the email did not originate with them.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: SINSULL
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 04:50 PM

Never respond to those emails or click on the link offered. Delete the email and go to your Paypal account directly.
Very annoying. I get them about once per month.
SINS

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 04:54 PM

The first thing to watch for is, do they address you by your own name? If they don't, but say "Dear Paypal Customer" or something like that, it's not from Paypal.

The next thing to do, even if they have addressed you by your name, is to open a separate page on the Net and go to your Paypal account and check out the situation there before you believe anything sent to you in an email purportedly from Paypal.

Another thing to do with any suspicious email is, right-click on it, go to "properties", go to "details", and take a look at who it's really coming from. This can often reveal quickly that it is not coming from the source it appears to be coming from.

There are a vast number of these email scams going on with people pretending to be Paypal, your bank, or some other outfit that handles your money. Most of them are pretty easy to spot once you get used to the general routine.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 05:55 PM

We have Rapport installed on both machines. It blocks attempts to access cookie information from non authorised sites. Shows green (all clear) next to URL field when I go into my bank accounts. Then I know I have accessed the proper site and not a fake front page of a phishing site.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 07:10 PM

I got one supposedly from Qwest, the phone company, which said the following:

Digital Impact is currently working on your custom content integration. The assigned Target Content task owner will receive a notifiction(sic) when all content is ready.

If you have any questions, please contact your Digital Impact Account Executive.

There was a "click here" directly after. When I moused over it, it was a long addy with qwest and one of our email addys in it, but when I backed it down to the supposed base addy it was bogus.

I just called Qwest. They have heard of it but not seen it so I am sending it on to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 07:40 PM

It is a quick and easy matter to View Source on one of these HTML emails, and examine the actual paths to alleged links take. They usually end up somewhere in the .ru TLD or similarly obscure places.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: artbrooks
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 07:40 PM

I got the same one, Kat.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 04:13 AM

I have been getting e-mails from World of Warfare, saying my account is being misused, and threatening to terminate said account As I have no account with them, and what's more, I had never heard of them before these e-mails, I just hit the delete button.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 05:18 AM

thanks for the hint about Viewing message source, Amos

I'm secretary for an organisation whose email address starts with "info" & therefore gets a lot of emails from organisations we don't have any dealings with. In that email program I can run my cursor over sender & read their address, but can't do the same in my own Intray.

Dos anyone know if it's possible in Thunderbird?

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 05:59 AM

Highlight the e-mail in Thunderbird, click on 'view' at the top of the page, and then select, 'Message source', this will give you all the info as to the origin of the e-mail.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Anne Lister
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 07:53 AM

I seem to be getting vast numbers of phishing emails, all of which show up on Mailwasher and get deleted before they get too far - easy enough to hover over the link and recognise it's not going where they say it is. The World of Warcraft thing is a real pain - I'm getting up to four or five of these a day, and it's easy enough not to fall for them as I have never had an account, but it's irritating all the same. I'm using Spam Cop, which will track the phishers down and alert their ISPs, but despite doing this with 80% of them they're still arriving thick and fast.
So far I have resisted the urge to send them a message to let them know how unappreciated they are ... have considered, however, collecting the originating addresses and signing them up for something similarly irritating.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 08:08 AM

In Thunderbird, highlight the message and click Ctrl-U

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 01:29 AM

John Mackenzie, please do not allow World of Warcraft to terminate your account! I am currently up to Level 9 with my Wizard character, Choke Macfrenzy, and have acquired a full complement of dwarf torpedoes and the Sacred Sword of Arangmithraes. And my use of cheat codes to induce the Dread Dragon of Elbadore to practice beastiality with several of my opponents may have been in bad taste, but certainly does not constitute a "misuse" of your account.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 05:48 AM

John -
Highlight the e-mail in Thunderbird, click on 'view' at the top of the page, and then select, 'Message source', this will give you all the info as to the origin of the e-mail.

art -
In Thunderbird, highlight the message and click Ctrl-U

In the other program I don't have to open the email to see the source, I can't see anyway to highlight without opening the email.

Which I don't want to do.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Anne Lister
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 07:58 AM

If you don't want to open the message, I'd recommend signing up to Spam Cop - and using a pre-scan system like MailWasher. Mailwasher enables me to see emails as they arrive, and read some of the content, without putting them into my inbox. Now that I'm also signed up to Spam Cop (I'm sure both of these facilities are findable on Google) I can tick the relevant box and the emails I know I don't want (Nigerian letters, phishing scams and the WoW alerts to a non-existent account) go off to Spam Cop, who can track the headers back and send notice to the ISPs.
Pretty efficient, even if it hasn't sorted out the root problem of the idiots who keep sending me the spam.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 09:17 AM

thanks for the suggestions, Anne, I'll check them out

sandra

overviews of Spam Cop & MailWasher -

Wikipedia on Spam Cop

Wikipedia on Mailwasher

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 12:45 PM

What are the World of Warcraft phishers trying to get from people?

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 01:01 PM

Google's gmail seems to detect and suitably file most of the spam directed my way. Earthlink did a pretty good job when I was still with them.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 03:14 PM

Your email program should display the address of any link in an email. In Thunderbird this shows up in the status bar when you hover over the link, revealing that the link is not in fact to login to your paypal/ bank account etc, but in fact is taking you to www.ripmeoff.com

If it's a particularly clever-looking scam, such as one that appears to have some of your personal details,it's worth reporting it to the site it's pretending to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Anne Lister
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 03:39 PM

LH, I suspect the WoW phishers are aiming for what everyone else wants - bank and card details, passwords, date of birth, all that kind of stuff.
I did once have an email from WoW (really) to thank me for purchasing "gold" on my credit card - turned out someone had taken advantage of our (then) insufficiently protected WiFi network and managed to find out all the relevant information. Almost certainly a kid, though, as the info was used to buy a relatively small amount of "gold" rather than anything more valuable. I was able to make the strong case that this was fraudulent and had the money refunded as it was clear that I didn't actually have a WoW account and the account linked to the "gold" was operating from a different computer.
But clearly sites like WoW will request that kind of information from their legitimate participants and I suspect that's where these phishing emails would take the unwary punter.
Supposing, of course, that a fair proportion of these emails land in the inboxes of WoW participants (just as the bank phishers will at some point hit at people who have accounts with that particular bank).

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: LadyJean
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 11:38 PM

I got caught in a similar scam from AOL. It's been a real mess straightening it out. I would have caught it but I was tired when I opened the email. It wasn't until the next day that I wondered why AOL would want my pin number. (Happily I didn't give it to them.)

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jun 10 - 01:18 AM

I've been getting phony ones that appear to emanate from Outlook Express. More phishing.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: open mike
Date: 11 Jun 10 - 01:57 AM

if i get suspicious e-mails i try to forward them to the place they try to look like they come from such as "[e-mail]" so they can be aware of phony scams and perhaps even trace or punish the perpetrators.

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Jun 10 - 07:31 AM

PayPal only ever addresses to a named person.

Which is why I rarely use my real name on the web, that way any PayPal spam is immediately recognisable, as is scam.

OK spambots -

My real name is William Gates

my e-mail address is [e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Paypal scam warning
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jun 10 - 01:50 AM

My real name is George W. Bush. I can be reached at [e-mail]