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Watch out for your Paypal Account

I'm posting this here since it seems the most appropriate place; hopefully the majority of Agon members and guests will see...

I just got an email that was placed in the "Junk" folder. Good thing. It was a bogus Paypal email. Attempted to get me to send personal information on my account.

I called paypal and they said:
1. They will always address you by name, never in general terms.
2. They never ask for personal info/passwords etc.

These emails may look pretty authentic but be forewarned!

I was told to send all suspicious emails to the junk folder where the attatchments are disabled and they cannot hurt your computer.

A lot of this was news to me - thankfully I was unharmed by it. Just sharing so we can enjoy our hobby without the scum of the world causing us grief!

Blessings,
Doug Schroeder
douglas_schroeder
9 responses Add your response
aball
2,016 posts
 
I have been getting those emails for over a year! Every week, like clockwork.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
Those emails go the all email accounts, including those not with a paypal account. They are just fishing.

I actually get those same emails from my own business telling me that my business is going to cancel my email account if I don't update my information.

I promise not to cancel myself....LOL!!

My server is clean and well protected, so they just took my email address from somewhere and sent me back a warning...
sfar's avatar
sfar
1,758 posts
 
These 'phishing' schemes are extremely common and you'll likely see them masquerading as any number of well-known institutions, eBay, Wells Fargo, Bank of American, PayPal, essentially any company that might have access to some of your money if you give away your password or account information.

No matter where the email appears to come from, the most important thing to remember is to NEVER click on a link within an email, even if you believe the email is authentic. Go to a new browser window and type in the web address you want, or select it from your own bookmarks.

These schemes work by taking you to what appears to be a legitimate site but is not. You're safer if you don't let them take you there through a link.
timrhu
2,779 posts
 
I've answered a few of them with "F*#^ off." I got bored with that and now simply igmore them.
Post removed 
restock
831 posts
 
Timruh, it is not a good idea to answer any spam or fishing emails: You only
verify that they sent their email to a valid email address. This only results in
many more unwanted emails, since they can sell your email address to
someone else.

The only, maybe satisfying, counteraction is to sign up the fishing email
address/spammer address to a mailing list like freeipod.com. That way THEIR
server will be flooded :-).

Good luck and hopefully this will help to keep these unwanted emails out.
plato
1,543 posts
 
I get one of those every once in a great while. I normally forward the offending e-mail to spoof@paypal.com

PayPal is usually fast in getting back to me to confirm the e-mail was fradulent and to delete it without replying. They say they will investigate the sender and I normally never hear from them again.

Once I had an official looking message that turned into a completely different non-sensical message when I hit the forward button to forward it. So I used the print screen feature on my keyboard to save the e-mail I was seeing to a Word document. Then I attached it to an e-mail and sent it to spoof@paypal.com and they took it from there.

These guys can be very clever.
dweller's avatar
dweller
3,781 posts
 
I'd say it's time to start castrating these worms...
dougmc
105 posts
 
Restock: I've often fantasized about doing exactly what you describe - putting someone who spams me on another spammer's hit list. However, I can't figure out how to do this without exposing my e-mail address to the second spammer. Can I access a site like your example, freeipod.com, without increasing my own spam exposure?
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