Warning for Paypal users!

slowair · Post by **slowair** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 10:49 pm

Last night I received an email telling me to click on a link provided in the email to update my account information. Said something about they were doing a routine update and they found my information did not match.

THIS EMAIL WAS A FRUAD!!!

The email message itself contained many grammatical and spelling errors. It looked pretty suspicous to me. I went to the paypal web site and found an email address in the Security section. I got a quick reply telling me the email was not from PayPal and I did the right thing to inform them.

If you receive such an email, do not answer it. Forward the original to spoof@paypal.com.

If you have received such an email and did answer it and provided personal information, contact paypal immediately.

If you would like a copy of the email I received back from paypal with the instructions on how to deal with this type of email, just send me a PM and I'll forward it. If enough people are interested, I'll post it here. It's rather lengthy.

I know a lot of folks here use eBay and paypal, so I hope this helps.

Mike

raindog1970 · Post by **raindog1970** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:30 am

I get those occasionally... got one last night too.
The funny thing is that I do not, and have never used PayPal... they're just randomly trolling for suckers.
Such scams are easy to sopt if you just check the actual URL of the link they provide for you to click... it almost always links to an IP address, and never to the registered domain name of the site they're impersonating.

Darwin · Post by **Darwin** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:13 am

slowair wrote:If you receive such an email, do not answer it. Forward the original to spoof@paypal.com.

I've received dozens of those--maybe hundreds--over the years. Before forwarding to spoof@paypal.com, I set Apple Mail to view the full header.

I also get similar notices for E-Bay and for various banks where I don't even have accounts.

One thing I've been seeing a lot of lately is a variety of notifications about my account on coastalfog.net. There are claims that it is being shut down, that I need to renew my password, that my email account is about to be shut down, etc., etc., etc., and they purport to come from admin, administrator, webmaster, info, register, service, and support--all @coastalfog.net. Of course, what the spammers don't know is that it's my domain. Each one contains a ZIP file about 50 KB in size. I haven't tried opening one yet. Since they are compressed, peeking inside doesn't reveal their content. With a file that large, I suspect a virus of some kind, though it probably wouldn't work on a Mac. Maybe I'll try opening one on my granddaughter's Mac, were there's not as much to lose.

I actually get fifty to a hundred of these daily. The high volume just started a week or so ago.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:29 am

Darwin wrote:I suspect a virus of some kind, though it probably wouldn't work on a Mac. Maybe I'll try opening one on my granddaughter's Mac, were there's not as much to lose.

"Thanks a lot, Grandpa."

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:11 am

Darwin wrote:
slowair wrote:If you receive such an email, do not answer it. Forward the original to spoof@paypal.com.
I've received dozens of those--maybe hundreds--over the years. Before forwarding to spoof@paypal.com, I set Apple Mail to view the full header.

I also get similar notices for E-Bay and for various banks where I don't even have accounts.
.

I get tons of these too. With AOL (despite their other problems) if I put my cursor on the link without clicking, a little box pops up and shows me the actual URL that the link goes to. It's always something really weird and long, having NOTHING at all to do with PayPal.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:14 am

Darwin wrote:One thing I've been seeing a lot of lately is a variety of notifications about my account on coastalfog.net. There are claims that it is being shut down, that I need to renew my password, that my email account is about to be shut down, etc., etc., etc., and they purport to come from admin, administrator, webmaster, info, register, service, and support--all @coastalfog.net. Of course, what the spammers don't know is that it's my domain. Each one contains a ZIP file about 50 KB in size. I haven't tried opening one yet. Since they are compressed, peeking inside doesn't reveal their content. With a file that large, I suspect a virus of some kind, though it probably wouldn't work on a Mac. Maybe I'll try opening one on my granddaughter's Mac, were there's not as much to lose.

I've been getting 3-5 of these a week for about a year and a half now. The .zip file definitely contains a virus. Usually a file named something like

Code: Select all

 
"important_details.txt                                                .scr"

All of the spaces make the .SCR extension not show up in your Windows explorer window, so you think it's a simple text file. Double click, and the virus gets ya.

dlovrien · Post by **dlovrien** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:32 am

Last Friday several people at my company (including me) received emails with our own corporate logo asking us to update our employee HR records online. This one would have gotten a lot of people had we not immediately disabled all .zip attachments on the email server. I think it would have even suckered people who are wise to the PayPal-type scams...

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:40 am

It's really good to post these warnings. I do use PayPal and I'm always afraid I'll forget that they would not have you give information with a link in an email.

But, if there was a genuine problem with something is it that they would tell you to go to their website and then do something there, right? And you know it's okay because only PayPal has a PayPal website that would have the information about your transactions.

Random notes · Post by **Random notes** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:00 am

Cynth wrote:But, if there was a genuine problem with something is it that they would tell you to go to their website and then do something there, right?

Right.

Also, the PayPal website URL will start out with "www.paypal. (etc)" A bogus site may have the word "paypal" somewhere in it, but not at the start.

See: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?c ... of-outside

If you answer one of these emails even if you do not enter any information on the bogus site, go immediately to Pay Pal and change your password.

You should always have some sort of virus protection and spyware protection running on your machine as well.

If all else fails, you will have to soak your entire system in 10% bleach for about 5 min. That should take care of everything.

Roger

slowair · Post by **slowair** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:50 am

Maybe I'm not so much a computer addict then, because this is the first one of these that I ever received.

And despite all the bad grammer and spelling errors, the link in the email did have paypal.com in the link, so it kind of threw me a bit. However, this is one time being cynical paid off.

Makes me realize that I need to check my bank account more often.

Mike

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:52 am

Random notes wrote: Also, the PayPal website URL will start out with "www.paypal. (etc)" A bogus site may have the word "paypal" somewhere in it, but not at the start.

Oh! This is I didn't really know and I wondered if there could be fake websites. We do have virus and spyware protection on our computers. It's just my brain that's the problem! Thank you.

Lambchop · Post by **Lambchop** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 11:07 am

It doesn't matter if you think the URL is for real or not . . . don't even bother trying to figure it out.

Just make it a rule that you never, ever, click on a URL like this that someone sends you. Just don't.

Instead of clicking on their URL, you open your web browser and type in what you know to be the URL of Paypal, or Mastercard, or American Express, or the gas company, or whomever it is. Whenever you register for online services, write down the URL so that you will always be able to get there by yourself.

And don't open attachments unless you are expecting them and you know what they are . . . don't be fooled because they come from a friend, either.

IDAwHOa · Post by **IDAwHOa** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:12 pm

slowair wrote:
If you receive such an email, do not answer it. Forward the original to spoof@paypal.com.

Similar action for eBay?

ShadowBG625 · Post by **ShadowBG625** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:30 pm

raindog1970 wrote:I get those occasionally... The funny thing is that I do not, and have never used PayPal.

Same here. It tends to get irritating. I knew it was a scam b/c 1) I did a google search and 2) My brother, who has paypal, didn't get an e-mail.

AngeloMeola · Post by **AngeloMeola** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 3:29 pm

One thing to watch for is that the crooks try to take advantage of those of us with less than perfect sight. They will use paypall.com or paypa1.com that look right at a quick glance. Just don't ever give personal information unless you typed in the url address yourself.
Angelo

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