PayPal Email

[Gregory DG]

Did anyone else get a suspicious email from PayPal recently? It was an html form and asked for username, password, credit card #... I almost fell for it then I remembered the PayPal agreement where they said they'd never ask for your username/password. I forwarded that onward.

 

Boy, did it look authentic though.

[sku_u]

I got one a few weeks ago and reported it to Paypal. They are aware of these emails and have been investigating the source, but that's about all they said in the automated response I received from them.

[Clock]

Thanks for the warning.

[Room 34]

A guy I work with got this email yesterday. Such audacity... not only do they ask you to give your password, but your credit card number AND your BANK ACCOUNT PIN!

[Gregory DG]

A guy I work with got this email yesterday.  Such audacity... not only do they ask you to give your password, but your credit card number AND your BANK ACCOUNT PIN!

 

No kidding! I hope they bust the clown doing it and throw away the key!

[video game addict]

I received one a couple days ago. The email header was [email protected], or something along those lines and it was also in html form. With the Paypal logos and all. It looked very legit, and basically stated something about my credit info been out of date, and that I should login to update it, but when you hover over the link it was not Paypal.com. it was something like, http://65.214.415.67 etc. So I simply deleted it. It did mention that any replies to the email would go unanwsered, and that you had to login to update your info.

[MrRetroGamer]

I got the email today - it was different from the one that was circulating a few weeks ago. This one LOOKED very official, with html formatting dead on to simulate the paypal template. It was from [email protected]

 

Red flags went up when they asked for my ATM PIN!!! Even my WIFE doesn't know that number, and banks NEVER ask for THAT!

 

I called paypal (yes, a business account has a toll free number that they will talk to you on) and they said it was fake. I forwarded the email to them at the account they told me to use: [email protected] Whatever you do, DO NOT submit info using that form.

[MrRoboto]

Got the same one retro did(he posted the pic in the other thread). Talk about being bold! I hate thiefs!

[Gregory DG]

Saw this today. About half-way down it mentions this Ebay scam. I wonder if they are any closer to nailing these clowns?

[Lost Monkey]

I got 2 of these emails today, a fake eBay and a fake Paypal...

[MegaManFan]

The fake eBay one is going out to pretty much anybody who has an account, I got one a couple weeks ago myself.

[SuperDork3000]

Thanks for the warning, ill keep an eye out for them.

As for me I keep getting those damn emails from Nigeria They are always trying to scam me

[liquid_sky]

i think we should team up and go around slapping nigerian spammers.. i get thier spam alot too

[Nukey Shay]

I can have your share of the $50 million then?

[Room 34]

I find it highly unlikely that the senders of that Nigeria spam even have any idea what CONTINENT Nigeria is on, much less that they are actually FROM there.

 

BTW, I just got another PayPal "email verification" spam today. It had a link that appeared to be straight to PayPal, but after it began unassumingly with https://www.paypal.com it was followed with a long string of inscrutible characters, not as a querystring, but as the PORT NUMBER in the URL format (i.e. there was a colon separating the www.paypal.com from the string).

 

I have not seen this URL format before, but I find it highly suspicious. Needless to say, I did not click it, and I trashed the email promptly. It just doesn't make any sense that PayPal would send users an email asking them to verify their email address. It is done under the pretense of them updating their records to cull out unused email addresses, but I would think that if it were legitimate, they'd give a date deadline when you need to do it or your account would be frozen.

 

Even THAT seems highly unlikely, since they want your money. Basically, the whole thing just doesn't add up.

[Inky]

If I get those emails, I just type obscene things in the fields and send them back. Never had any reprucssions from it.

[Nukey Shay]

Just by responding to the email verifies that your email address exists (which they can then sell to other spammers). The only solution is to do nothing at all and wait until your addy is dropped out of the lists. The solution is obvious...DON'T GIVE OUT YOUR PRIMARY EMAIL ADDRESS. Even on message boards such as this. Create multiple accounts and use those instead.

[MegaManFan]

Here's a tip for those of you who send me e-mail and don't get responses right away - my AtariAge e-mail is NOT my primary address. That's why it's usually quicker to PM me, unless I know you sent me something. In fact as I look at my sig I think I must have removed it, so the only place people would get it is from the website in my sig, which doesn't list my primary e-mail either.

[Inky]

DON'T GIVE OUT YOUR PRIMARY EMAIL ADDRESS.  Even on message boards such as this.  Create multiple accounts and use those instead.

 

Way ahead of ya there

[slapdash]

BTW, I just got another PayPal "email verification" spam today.  It had a link that appeared to be straight to PayPal, but after it began unassumingly with https://www.paypal.com it was followed with a long string of inscrutible characters, not as a querystring, but as the PORT NUMBER in the URL format (i.e. there was a colon separating the www.paypal.com from the string).

 

I have not seen this URL format before, but I find it highly suspicious.

 

Good for you. Suspicion is your friend when it comes to the internet.

 

By the way, a good many of these scams really on this sort of thing:

 

http://[email protected]

 

That '@' is something to look for, as anything to the left is not where you're going, but anything to the right IS. Haven't seen a ':' exploit yet, but I'm on the lookout now!

[Room 34]

You know, what you said just tipped me off to something else...

 

There are actually TWO places where a colon can appear in a URL (after the // of course): One is between the domain/IP and the port, which is what I was assuming here, but the other is between a username and password, preceding the @ and then the real URL. I already threw away that spam but I would like to see the URL again... I do believe there was another domain name in the long string of "garbage" characters, possibly folllowing an @.