B

bmurrish

Well Known Member
:mad: This thread is off topic but hopefully it will prevent a fellow builder from getting scammed like I just did.

I use Paypal all the time to order parts for the plane or get stuff on ebay. I received an email that said it was from Paypal. In the email it said you have added the following email to your account. They give you some bogus yahoo email address. The next line says if you didn't authorize this addition to contact customer service at the link provided. You click on the link and it takes you to what looks exactly like Paypals official website. I mean it is dead on, it even shows paypal.com in the link that comes up (Paypal still can't figure out how they are doing this). They have you log into your account (I found out later you can put anything in the box and it will work). The next box says they are doing routine security maintenance and you must enter your credit card number and expiration, which like an idiot I fell for because it all looked real. After you enter the information it comes back up with the same page. I went about taking care of some other things and them it dawned on me that it might be a scam. I called Paypal and they verified that it was definitely a scam and blocked my account. I hung up with them and called my bank. Sure enough, in the matter about 1 hour the scum bags had opened a fake Yahoo Wallet account, which generates a $1.00 charge to the credit card to verify it as good. I had my bank immediately canceled the card. Thank God I caught it in time. Who knows what I may have bought if I didn't catch on. I really thought I pretty safe and feel really stupid about getting burned. Just goes to show you how tricky crooks can be.
 
Yeah, those paypal e-mails definitely look real.

Did they address you with your actual name? I've heard paypal will ALWAYS email you with your name-- not a version of your email, or user name.
 
The biggest thing about both Paypal and Ebay is that they will NEVER (they say themselves) ask for your credit card number and never ask for your login to be responded by e-mail. (Your's was a bit more tricky because of the link to their site for a "login")

I never follow e-mail links. I know that if it's a legitiment problem, I can log directly into their site and then take care of the problem.
 
Mee too....almost

t?s a bit unnerving purchasing over the web. I do it all the time but I was looking at a motorcycle on e-bay. The guy said he didn?t have a pay-pal account and wanted the money deposited through some other service and they would pay out only when I called and stated that I was happy with my merchandise.

I e-mailed him and asked if he would use another e-bay recommended pay method and he sent me an e-mail stating if I wanted to do business with him that I had to do it his way.

Thinking this was suspicious I notified e-bay. They responded that afternoon and pulled about 18 or so advertisements from this same guy. Turns out it was a scam and a couple of people had been burned. About 11K each

You have to be careful. If it seems way too good to be true?.it probably is.
 
Internet scams

I'm sorry to hear you got scammed like this. There are dozens of scams where Paypal, Ebay, various banks, and other institutions try to get you to click on a link. Never click on an E-mail link!!!

There are professional crooks out there that are literally processing scammed information as fast as they can. These are not one-man operations, but huge, professionally run criminal organizations.

If you did not initiate the transaction, meaning going to a website that you typed in yourself, never enter any personal data. With a name, birthdate, and SSN a crook can do just about anything.

Don't forget the "nigerian scam" as well. This has suckered thousands into giving the crooks all their money. It's the deal where someone has millions sitting in a bank "somewhere", and they need your help getting the money out.

Also, there are *lots* of people that have keystroke scanning viruses running on their PC without even knowing it. The crooks are going to process your information, when they get to it. They have *massive* backlogs of data to process. They'll get to yours eventually!

Think of getting onto the internet as sex with a random stranger. Be very careful, and use as much caution and protection as possible!
 
The thing that gets me is that it was a https site followed by paypal.com. How the heck did they do that? If you pull both sites up side by side they are almost completely identical. That is scary. Lesson learned and best of all no money lost.
 
Spoofing a legitimate URL address isn't particularly difficult for these people, but the easy way to check if an address is real, is when you're on that page, click on File/Properties at the top of your browser and the real address will be shown.

99% of the time, the address shown in Properties is exactly the same as what you see in the Address bar on your screen. However, when a spoofed address, the Properties will show the page where you are REALLY at, and it may not be what your Address bar says.

I get this stuff all the time and sometimes can't help but fill in all the info with various vulgar usernames and passwords.
Real vulgar, if you know what I mean, and the "Verification" form always accepts the stuff. I just can't help myself. :mad:
 
This sort of scam in the hacker/computer security world is called 'phishing', since they are sort of fishing for information.

Entering bogus information in their forms is actually a good way to counter this sort of thievery. If everyone that received these e-mails entered bogus information, these criminals would have a very difficult time determining what is real and what is not.

In short, I never respond to an e-mail about some problem with an account, etc. I always open my browser (Firefox, of course) and go directly to the site.

Also, always make sure that the certificate on the server is good. Van's even needs to fix a minor problem with theirs.
 
Good for me, bad for you

Jamie said:
This sort of scam in the hacker/computer security world is called 'phishing', since they are sort of fishing for information.
Click to expand...

Jamie is correct.
This is big big business folks. Keeps me in a job. Our company tracks these and puts blocks on firewalls at litterally hundreds a day. Talk about moving targets.

It is amazing after all that is out there that folks STILL click through their e-mail. Never never do it period.

:(
 
And oh yeah...thanks for sharing the info William. It takes some degree of courage and thoughtfulness to let everyone know that you got taken. I'm glad that you caught it in time.
 
Speaking of this PayPal scam, I just received the same bogus PayPal email a few minutes ago, for the second time in three weeks! :mad:
 
Me Too!

Been there, done that! Got the exact same email last week. Was wise to it though because I almost got taken by one just 2 days prior. This particular one was from "PayPal", and the subject line read something to the effect of "Unathorized access of your account". I always make it a habit to check the hyperlink in any email to make sure it matches what it says in the email. This one was close, but not exact. Suspicious, I clicked on it... and it took me to, what was described earlier, a dead-on replica of paypal's login page. The address bar still read the suspicious address, so I closed the browser and logged into my paypal acct the old fashioned way. I figured if there really was an issue, they would let me know once I was in my acct.

Just to set my mind at ease, I found the "suspected fraud" link on paypal's website and submitted the bogus address. Within a few hours I got a confirmation email from paypal indicating it was infact a scam!

Closest I've come to falling for one!

I make it a habit of never clicking on links in emails unless I am familiar with them. Guess I got complacent! This one was suspicious, but it was still close enough to sucker me in (something like maillink.paypal.com or something) Guess we all need a reality check now and then...

Mark.
 
This is why I NEVER, NEVER buy anything on line. I will research stuff on the comp, but if the company doesent have a phone to call, they dont get my business.

To err is human.
With a computer you can make a reall mess of things.

Mike
 
I buy online, for about 80% of everything I do. Bills, ordering pizza, buying from eBay, Van's, Aircraft Spruce, etc. Heck, I even bought a new car online. However, the trick is to always use a Visa card or other major card (they have online buyer protection in case of fraud), and to be certain you are using a site that uses secure SSL encryption/servers.

Not saying that my online buying habits are right or wrong, but I conduct a ton of business via the net and have never had a transaction go wrong (knock on wood).
 
txaviator said:
I buy online, for about 80% of everything I do. Bills, ordering pizza, buying from eBay, Van's, Aircraft Spruce, etc....
Click to expand...
Same here. I have a neat system offered by my CC company wherein a unique card number can be generated to use for each purchase and you set the limit on the generated card number to exactly match the purchase amount. Once it is used, it's used up and even if stolen at that point nothing more can be charged against that number. My base card number is never put into any of the fields.

-mike
 
I've gotten a lot of bogus e-mails that look like they are from Pay Pal. They look quite legitimate. I called Pay Pal and they said they always will use your name in any correspondence.

Mark
 
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