Be alert Pay Pal users!!!! Please read!

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to give you all a heads up that is spreading on the net. Some of you may or may not know this, but i wanted to share it with those of you who don't know.

If you are a Pay Pal user, Please be very cautious.

Today i received an email from "security@paypal.com". At first i thought nothing of it and opened up the email. The email stated that they required further action from me as they suspected that someon may have hacked into my account. They had asked me to click the link below and log into my acccount and provide the neccessary information.

Immediately i was suspicious because for one, i received the email on my business email address which is different from the one on my pay pal account. Secondly the link provided had a weird IP address and a link like wwwDOTpaypalizz.com, this furthered my suspicions. As i i clicked the link to log in, the site looked exactly like the real paypal website, which anyone can do who knows html, css etc.

So to make sure i contacted paypal, and about an hour later they verified that this email was a fraud.

I'm glad that right away my alert bells went off and my suspicions were valid, so fortunately i did not provide any crucial info, i did change my password and I.D just in case.

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO READ SECURITY METHODS AND ABOUT FRAUD EMAILS ON PAYPALS SITE.....

here's some info....


Protect Yourself from Fraudulent Emails

At PayPal, protecting your account's security is our top priority. Recently, PayPal members have reported suspicious-looking emails and fake websites. These emails are not from PayPal and responding to them may put your account at risk. Please protect your PayPal account by paying close attention to the emails you receive and the websites you visit.

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.
* 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 delete the email from your mailbox. Never click any links or attachments in a suspicious email.

I just wanted you all to be aware of this, and keep your eyes open and stay alert!!!

Simple rule here people: No bank, financial institution of ANY kind, credit card company, brick & mortar store of any and all kinds, Internet store of any and all kinds, PayPal, eBay, mortgage company, cable TV provider, electric company, gas company, your local city, county, state, federal, national governments of ANY kind would EVER ask you to provide ANY personal/account/passw​ord information over the Internet.

EVER, EVER, EVER.

It never fails to amaze me how gullible people are. NEVER EVER EVER give out personal information over the Net.

Thanks for that. Sound advice.

This phishing is not unique to PayPal. It could appear to be from any financial institution, lender, any one that you may or may not do business with. Doe not answer their questions or click on their link. If you have any questions contact the supposed institution directly.
It is a mean world out there

I got a phishing email the other day from someone claiming to from Visa.
I simply forwarded it to Visa and got a lovely thank you in reply

If more people reported these scams then it would become harder and harder for the scammers to get away with it.

I work in a bank myself, and as Jim (RFM) has pointed out. Any professional organisation like this, would NEVER send out such mail. Even most faxes and phone calls, have to go through a special authority check list, in order to keep the highest security possible.

Most often, just keep an eye out for the secure sites, with the https:, and the padlocked icon down the bottom right of a page. That means it's a secured site, and much less likely to be a fake of some sort.

The paypal, ebay and other fraud emails aren't new at all, I see them for at least a couple of years. And right, it's nothing technical it's all "human factor" related - if you will NEVER provide any personal/secure/sensit​ive data via email it will help a lot.

I regularly get spam phishing mail from criminals trying to trick me into giving them my PayPal account information.

Months ago we had different forum software here on POTN, which had a bug that criminals managed to take advantage of and they got a lot of names and e-mail addresses from the POTN user database. Pekka changed the forum software after that happened.

If you get a mail like that, please report it to spoof@paypal.com - for more information, see this page from PayPal: PayPal - Protect Yourself from Fraudulent Emails

NEVER click on a link in an e-mail that looks like it points to the PayPal website. Criminals use tricks to include links in e-mails, so that on the outside the link looks like it points to the PayPal website (https://www.paypal.com​/...), but in reality it points to a fake PayPal website. If you enter your personal information on the fake website, the criminals got you.

If you get an e-mail and you want to check it out, always manually type the address in the address bar of your browser. Don't click on the link and do not copy & paste it.

Never click on any link in any email. Type the URL into your web browser yourself. Most financial institutions don't send any links in emails any more for this reason.

I got one of those phony emails from paypal today, in the subject box it had 'X' I quickly deleted it.

I've got a few of these emails BEFORE I had a paypal account.

i love it, if you wait an hour or so, and click the provided link, it will most likley be gone already, these guys dont stay up long... Hey, anyone here get the email: winxpNews? its really cool, lots of info and tips and such, anyway they did a thing on how these freaks steal and trade/sell your info on these web sites...most are in Russia.. anyhow, just to get to buy/sell/trade on these sites, you need to bring like a gold card, a SS number and some other info.. can you imagine? Its a forum like this but instead of helping each other with photography, these gus are discussing how to best rip people off!
-zacker-

If your careful and know what your doing then you can buy and trade online with some safety. If you can break 128 bit SSL ecntryption then I'll pay you some money myself. Just don't have any of your bank detaiols saved on your pc unless your sure you have it locked down. Also don't be suckered into giving out any details to anyone. You wouldn't tell some guy who walks up to you in the street your credit card number... so why would you do it online.. Just common sense.

Ill repeat this.

In Denmark we are so lucky that regarding banks we as users are protected by the law. If someone are tricked to give out information that lead to loss of money in internetbanks etc then the banks will cover any loss. But that of course is no excuse for being stupid and follow links in emails like these.

DocFrankenstein wrote:
I've got a few of these emails BEFORE I had a paypal account.

Hehe and I only get the paypal emails on an email account that I never used for Paypal. I have never ever received any fake emails on the actual email account I have associated with Paypal. So when I received the first fake email I knew instantly that it was fake, I did not even have to use a single second to investigate it.