posted on October 7, 2005 12:19:04 PM new
hi everyone
I'm new here at ebay but I wanted to let everyone here know of a Paypal email going around that's a fake.Upon opening my mail today there was an email with a Paypal heading saying that a new email was added to my account.Having not added any new email accounts to my Paypal I became suspicious.I clicked on a link in this email and it supposedly brought me to the Paypal website.It then came up with a page that said "We are doing random security checks and you have been chosen." Then it began to ask for my bank account #'s.Now being the extremely cautious and skeptical person I am I said to myself "There's no way I'm putting any numbers in there."Well it's a goood thing I didn't.I typed in the Paypal address into my browser and was brought to the actual site where after logging in there was no page asking for any security check.I was going to contact Paypal directly but decided to look around and see if there was a way to distinguish a real Paypal email from a fake.On the Paypal website there is a question and answer area that tells you how to tell this.Well to make a long story short I found out that the address I went to through the link in my email was a fake and were trying to get my info.I sent the entire email to [email protected] so they would be aware of it.Please be careful whenever you get an email from Paypal.If it's actually from there they will start the email with your real name and not "Dear Paypal user" Thanks for listening and I'm sorry I was so long winded but I wanted everyone to be aware of this.
posted on October 7, 2005 12:30:00 PM new
I get fake PayPal and eBay emails all the time on email accounts I don't even use for those site. And from banks I don't even belong to.
Just check the url at the top, usually if it's a fake, it will be something like www.ebay-verify.info/`.... and you're right, they will never say "Dear PayPal user" they'll address you by your real name or username. But even those can be fakes, so we really need to be careful. People use the "ask seller a question" to get this info and send phishing emails.
posted on October 7, 2005 09:36:23 PM new
Vintage has a very good point. If you clicked on that link, do an immediate scan of your hard drive with your AV program. If no key logging trojans are detected, then scan with an external AV program such as Housecall at Trendmicro.com to be sure. Many of these spoofs don't need for you to enter your password on their fake site. They get it with a trojan as soon as you sign on to Paypal if you clicked on their link in the email.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on October 8, 2005 07:59:51 AM new
I usually use a Mac anyways, so that cuts down the risk of any problems to practically zero. Just about any viruses and spyware are written for Windows PCs, but I still never click on a link in an email.
With so many fake emails I've actually mistaken a few legit emails for fakes. Only found out after I forwarded them as spoofs and got confirmation. Of course, the safest way is to open a new browser and log into your eBay or PayPal account. If there's a new message or alert, they'll let us know.
