21 replies to this topic

[BuffaloHelp]

I have seen posts about what kind of messages are out there fooling members to give up private information--especially when PayPal sent you one. Oh no! No way, PayPal address cannot be faked. Wrong. I almost gave away my entire personal information about 3 years ago. And the fake messages are getting better and better. Even the site that links to looks too real. So I decided to share this with you, in hopes that no one from TRAP17 are suckered into giving up what is private information.

PS I know everyone knows this but let's spread the word and see how many more we can educate. Post in original as you can. Sorry that my gif conversion cause some color information loss.

What I received in my inbox


When I click on the link, it almost fooled me but thank god the site was taken down

[sxyloverboy]

yeah i hate those good thing gmail filters them out quite well. another hint at it being a hoax would be looking at the domain. which can also be cloak but this one wasnt. they uses multiple subdomains to achieve a www.paypal.com infront of the ecgi2.us. just though id point it out.

[nerdy monkey]

yes gmail is good about getting rid of most of them but thanks for the screenshot. it does look like something paypal might send out.

[Nue1]

Well, I sometimes get a mail like that too and I also have a account on paypal and so I click on the link and the browser came up with the same result are yours too.

Oh well, I have a gmail account but did not use it Is it can block the letter or mail like that?

[hulunes]

yeah,luckly gmail can filter them out automaticly.i do dislike that kind of message...hope more and more E-mail system can deal with this shortcoming and againt any kind of dangerous message.

[wariorpk]

Yes Gmail does take those types of e-mails quite seriously because you can report them seperate from their annoying cousins that we call spam. I am really glad you told us about this and I am really glad that the site was down. I don't know why people do stuff like this its just not right.

[RemoteConnection]

oh ... seems scary... but i thing it's a old method for hacking others info.

[inyourarms]

Oh I hate those stupid fake paypal emails. I get a lot of them and I'm never sure whether or not they're believable.

[zaqy]

I Always turn off HTML for my email setting. so i always be carefull about from whom i get email.

I use Yahoo and Gmail as my default email . in yahoo i always got email like that . Just pointing your mouse to the link then right click and copy link address and you will find a fake website.

the best way is just protect your email ( and check about bulk mail or spam email) if you're not sure what you do. leave that email alone

[puffy]

Ohh paypal, dont tell me about that it is really the worst company i have ever seen on the internet.
Becoz they never have back up of our account and also they never provide security.
I used paypal before, one day i saw my credit statement which had billed Rs.30,000 in indian currency without me purchasing anything.
When i complained about them about this there was no response from paypal and i got sucked.
I havent payed those dues still yet. I am suffering a lot my father always remainds me of that incident done by me.
I suggest the members here not use that... Keep it away from you..

Edited by puffy, 11 February 2006 - 10:49 AM.

[gameratheart]

puffy, on Feb 11 2006, 10:48 AM, said:

Ohh paypal, dont tell me about that it is really the worst company i have ever seen on the internet.
Becoz they never have back up of our account and also they never provide security.
I used paypal before, one day i saw my credit statement which had billed Rs.30,000 in indian currency without me purchasing anything.
When i complained about them about this there was no response from paypal and i got sucked.
I havent payed those dues still yet. I am suffering a lot my father always remainds me of that incident done by me.
I suggest the members here not use that... Keep it away from you..

Puffy is right. I actually have heard official reports that people's accounts have been frozen without reason after using eBay or other "safe online shops" due to "Suspected Criminal or otherwise Suspicious Activity", and many people, like puffy, have lost money for no real reason. I have even heard a report that they charged $500,000 from an account for no reason!

And the problem is, noone can do anything about it, because the worst fact of it all is: PayPal isn't owned by a bank, so they are immune to money handling laws!!!
And then there's the people always trying to fake Paypal, and getting better and better at doing so, hacking accoutns unwarily, stealing money...

I don't honestly see why eBay, or indeed ANYONE, trusts Paypal anymore. If anyone is seriously thinking about using Paypal, DON'T DO IT!!! You don't want to become one of the NEAR-MILLION people who have been conned out of money, had their account hacked, or get spam 24/7, so forget it. Paypal sucks.

Edited by NDPA, 12 February 2006 - 02:05 AM.

[Kioku]

No offense to anyone who did fall for it, but I'd be abble to see through a scheme like this easily. IT'sd not that hard and don't automatically believe any email that comes in. Often, just confirm it with PayPal if worse comes to worse.

[sonyguy]

Yeh, these e-mails are a pain, I get them all the time. Just wastes my time deleting them almost every day.

To be honest, I thought it was quite obvious that it was junk mail, but lots of people out there seemed to have a fallen for it! Hope this message gets across to as many people as possible. The people that send these e-mail are getting more and more malicious!

[MAME_NUT]

I have had the same problem with these e-mails. Like was stated earlier, check to see what the url is. (Usually it points to somewhere like www.paypal.com.ae.tk or something else crazy) The address bar at the top may even well show www.paypal.com. You need to look in the bottom left corner of your explorer window (If you use IE). There it will show where you are actually going to link to. I have received these e-mails with different "themes". Some say that suspicious account activity was detected, others say that they need my account updated or it will be suspended. Anyhow, I have yet to fall for any of these, but obviously someone is or they wouldn't be using this ancient phishing scheme. Paypal has been fine with me, I still have money in it, and I have NEVER been contacted by Paypal.

Edited by MAME_NUT, 12 April 2006 - 09:08 PM.

[TripleH13]

I have gotten like three of these. At first i was like what this becuase first of all i don't even have a paypal account so i knew that it must have been a scam of some sort. But everyone should be very careful becuase if you do have an account it seems so real that you might actually think it is paypal.

[BordaForx]

I know, it's scary, they're getting more...real, the websites. I have learned somethings to stay away from. Sometimes, the scammers make their site look exactly the same, but check the URL, is it the same? If it's not, then it's probably a scam.

Also, check for holes in the messages, as in, does it make any sense? Have you ever done these things? If a website states that they will never ask you for your password, and someone caliming to be the website asks for your password, it's, by reason, fake.

[Dooga]

Never click a link in a PayPal email. Never. Not even if it's ACTUALLY from paypal. If you get an email telling you to verify your email, copy and paste the URL that they want you to use and paste it manually into your browser. (It should NOT be something like "Click here to verify" it should be something like "https://www.paypal.com/foo/bar/verify"). Although Paypal does use text like "Click here to blah blah", they would usually provide an alternate URL, so copy and paste that one instead. Normally, just copy and paste the verification code and enter it in the page by manually going to paypal's site and finding that page. After you copy and paste ANYTHING and use it already, be sure to clear your clipboard, or copy something else that's useless.

Do not EVER enter ANY information in a window without an address bar. The address bar should work, you should be able to access different sites with it, and you should be able to right click on it. (Once I saw a very well duplicated address bar with working buttons too! However you couldn't right click...)

ALWAYS open a new window and type "https://www.paypal.com/" (with the s in HTTPS!) and fulfill the instructions in your email manually. Be sure that the first slash "/" is directly after "paypal.com".

Paypal will NEVER address you as "Paypal user" or "Paypal Member" or your email address. They will always call you by your name.

If you suspect a site that is fake, enter some fake information in the login box (like "1ksja" for the username and "ak99jka" for the password) and see if you can log in. If for some reason you do log in, that site is fake.

I recieve so many of these emails it's not even funny... I don't even use Ebay or Chase! lol

[MAME_NUT]

Dooga, on Apr 12 2006, 08:31 PM, said:

Paypal will NEVER address you as "Paypal user" or "Paypal Member" or your email address. They will always call you by your name.

Actually Dooga, they somehow have found out my name and put it in one of my fake verification pages someone sent me. But I guess that isn't to hard to spoof some of these things being as your e-mail address is your Paypal ID. Hmmmm.. How convienent. Is it possible to find out much about me with just my e-mail address? I would like to know.

[CrazyRob]

PayPal never send out email like that and always check in the browser that the url has a https:// if not close the browser that cathes out loads of people so make sure there is a https://

[Nik]

I have also received such types of the messages many times, I asked about this to my friend, then one of my friend who is expert in identifying the fake mails told me that it is the fake mail and once you logon to this site they will hack your password or your credit card no. and apply this for illegal purpose. So before sign up check for genuine website.

[vhortex]

Nik, on 18 August 2010 - 01:46 PM, said:

I have also received such types of the messages many times, I asked about this to my friend, then one of my friend who is expert in identifying the fake mails told me that it is the fake mail and once you logon to this site they will hack your password or your credit card no. and apply this for illegal purpose. So before sign up check for genuine website.

the email headers is the key if you can be easily fooled by URL (web addresses). Gmail and the new Yahoo mail have "view headers" or "view transcript" menu which will show you

mail ID - mail id of the email when it was sent by the mail server
source mail server - simply the name of the mail server or an IP addresses if it is not available.

any webmail client that don't have this info shown to you also discards this info and was more prone for spams. MSN and hotmail for example refuse to show me this info and my mailbox even if it is not known to anyone except 2 friends gets 140spam a day with 2-4 valid emails. my gmail on the other hand gets 500+ mails a day and 3-5 spams a day and it was posted on hundreds of websites around the globe.

firebox's mail client also can see this and "some" outlook softwares (i think a patch is needed for this to work)...

[The Simpleton]

I haven't received any emails like these and I know I wouldn't be fooled anyway. This is 2010, and by now most people who use Paypal do know that such emails are fake and only the most unsuspecting of them all will fall for such traps in this day and age. Still, it's best to be cautious so be safe everyone!