PayPal Scam

[American Zombie]

Posting this in case others receive it.

Came to an email address that is NOT tied to any PayPal account. :laugh:

Dear PayPal member

Technical services are being carried out as a planned software update.

We earnestly ask you to visit the following link to start the planned procedure.

We apologize for you inconvenience but please be assured that once completed, your account will be updated and no further emails will be sent.

Ignore this email and your account will be put on the high-risk account types and you may experience further delays in acquiring information.

We present our appoligies and thank you for your cooperation.

 

[Admiral Michael]

Posting this in case others receive it.

Came to an email address that is NOT tied to any PayPal account. :laugh:

Gotta love it when they do that. LOL

 

[gonaads]

There are quite a few fake PayPal e-mails floating around all saying either to update your account or that someone tried to use your account fraudulently or that the are upgrading and on and on. I sometimes enjoy filling out their crap forms with crap of my own.

 

[Admiral Michael]

I sometimes enjoy filling out their crap forms with crap of my own.

Hmm

 

[LeeJend]

Yeah, I was amused when I got my PAYPAL email. Especially since I never had an account. ROFLMAO

 

[Son Goku]

There are quite a few fake PayPal e-mails floating around all saying either to update your account or that someone tried to use your account fraudulently or that the are upgrading and on and on. I sometimes enjoy filling out their crap forms with crap of my own.

rofl, sound almost like something I played on one of the battle.net password scammers once... He created an account like *battle_net, and

We will be deleting all accounts on server and all your items will be GONE!!! To backup your characters /m *battle_net <name> <password>

So, I messaged the guy to tell him how lame this whole impersonating of b.net is, and that those likely to fall for it are peeps that probably haven't been around long enough to get good items anyway. So he messaged me back like "ah but it's a lot of fun. Stupid n00b, I just stole another account bwahahaha"

After he kept messaging me back and slapping himself on the back for "how clever I am" I created a bogus account "hack_me_plz, and only created 1 legit sounding char. The rest were bogus names like WhatsaMatterNoGoodItems and WhoFooledWho :laugh:

I then dropped even the starting gear, and PMed him from the one legit looking character. Well someone fell for it, as the password got changed

BTW, wrt Paypal before, I've gotten email for them concerning an account on an email address I never registered it to... BTW, there is a means to report this, though I'm not sure how much good it will do wrt Paypal. At least if they do it on Ebay, and provide their user account info in the impersonation of Ebay, umm well they could get themself banned for that sorta scam...

 

[American Zombie]

BTW, there is a means to report this, though I'm not sure how much good it will do wrt Paypal.

As soon as I received the email I notified Paypal at this link with the URL in the email and the text of the message.

Within 15 minutes a PayPal rep replied saying they did not know about this one and were now in the process of shutting it down.

 

[NetRyder]

Heh, I get phishing emails claiming to be from banks I've never even heard of.

 

[gonaads]

When I do fill out one of them fake site forms I usually fill it with

e-mail: nottoday@nospam.net or eatshiit@biteme.gov or eatshiit@fvckyov.org

first name: Jo

last name: Mama

mother's maden name: Kruger

address: 123 Elm St.

 

[Son Goku]

As soon as I received the email I notified Paypal at this link with the URL in the email and the text of the message.

Within 15 minutes a PayPal rep replied saying they did not know about this one and were now in the process of shutting it down.

Good to know they responded to this so quickly. Especially considering it's people's money this is dealing with :up:

When I do fill out one of them fake site forms I usually fill it with

e-mail: nottoday@nospam.net or eatshiit@biteme.gov or eatshiit@fvckyov.org

first name: Jo

last name: Mama

mother's maden name: Kruger

address: 123 Elm St.

Too bad we'll never know the look on these scammer's faces when they check their logs and see this

Might be about as classic as when this one scammer was out there with his "get quick rich scheme" method to avoid paying taxes. The only problem is, everyone who payed him his conference fee to "learn his secrets" ended up getting audited by the IRS. Somehow, he wasn't however. So a camera crew went to ask him about it for one news documentary show.

He demanded they get the camera out of his face and punched the camera guy. Where upon he started yelling and demanding the police come and "arrest them now". They showed the police the tape, who then arrested him for assault instead. Whereupon a little background check was done and anomolies were found in his own tax record. The IRS was, well interested :laugh:

 

[Kr0m]

I just got one of these emails (first time, yay!). I remembered the posts on here about paypal scams and immediately became suspect of it. I decided to read the email (via Hotmail) just to check it out, pretty convincing. The email stated

It has come to our attention that your PayPal® account information needs to be
updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to
reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could please take 5-10 minutes
out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into
any future problems with the online service.
"

The email provided the following links for me to click on:
- http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run disguised as (http://140.112.66.197/atmos/.login/.member/.PayPal/.us/login.html) <-- obvious no no, but for an unsuspecting person, it might look legit if they didn't look at the URL when their mouse hovered over the IP
- http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_privacy-outside disguised as http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_privacy-outside), not so obvious.

Just because I was still unsure if it was a scam or not, I went to my paypal account (no, not via the links provided in the email) to see if there were any notices like the one previously stated... of course there weren't any.

I managed to find the following on the paypal.com site regarding fraudulant emails, it may be usefull for some in regards of what to look for when getting these scam 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.

:crosseyed:

 

[Son Goku]

I got one of these one time. But to make matters stranger, it came in on the wrong email address, aka not the one I had registered with Pay Pal... But yeah, when getting one of these things, best just to try to login directly (without using the email). They'll tell you upon login if they need something...

Oh, and definitely OT, but how are these people getting these addresses. I've never given out my gmail addy to anyone, registered at any site with it, or used it in any way. I haven't typed it anywhere online (no spam bots could have scoured it from forum posts or wherever else).

 

[Steevo]

My favorite.

ImaAhole@yourmam.cum

or

Inyermouth@bigones.com

Most of the tiem it is something of the sort. I haev also traded e-mails them PM with a scammer in France, he was sending stuff supposedly from Africa (Nigerian gov official) with a French free Yahoo account. Hey, it was fun. and the acciounts are free so who cares. I was a rich white guy from Germany.