Pay Pal Spoof

[Marc]

Hi everyone. I received the following email today. It didn't smell right so I logged onto the PayPal website (not via the email link) to see what they said. There was of course no mention of any account updates.

Cheers
Marc

Here is the address the embedded link tries to direct you to:
http://skyveo.com/index.htm

Dear valued PayPal® member :

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.

However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension.
Please update your records on or before January 21, 2006.

Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal® session will not be
interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your PayPal® records click on the following link:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=login-run



Thank You.
PayPal® UPDATE TEAM

Accounts Management As outlined in our User Agreement, PayPal® will
periodically send you information about site changes and enhancements.

Visit our Privacy Policy and User Agreement if you have any questions.
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_privacy -outside

 

[ray_g]

Sounds like a scam to me. I got one from "ebay" sometime back.

If it is true, I haven't gotten one. Good thing, because I will not respond. FrankS had better decide what to do with the money for Joe before my account gets suspended 😉

 

[RML]

I totally igone every message from PayPal, eBay or any other company that informs me of so-called updates or "suspicious account use", and have done so for many many years now. They straight go to my spam bin. GMail does that by default. 🙂

 

[Frank Granovski]

I get 3 of those paypay e-mails daily. I also get similar ebay kinds. It's a SCAM! 😎

 

[Marc]

Guess I was preaching to the choir on that one. Please accept my apologies for pointing out what appears to be old news. This is the first time I have received an email like that.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

One of my students said "If I get a mail from a bank saying they need to confirm my account number I'm not going to respond."

 

[RML]

Guess I was preaching to the choir on that one. Please accept my apologies for pointing out what appears to be old news. This is the first time I have received an email like that.

No problem, Marc. You're not the only one. One time we were all paypal/ebay scam virgins. 🙂

 

[Frank Granovski]

Yeah, I also get them from American banks (I'm Canadian) and credit unions and CCs. Once in a while I do a trace and find out they're mainly coming from Peking, China. Go figure. :bang:

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I just trashed a whole lot of these...I'm hoping they'll stop coming to that address now that I have SpamAssassin on that email. :evil:

 

[bmattock]

Guess I was preaching to the choir on that one. Please accept my apologies for pointing out what appears to be old news. This is the first time I have received an email like that.

Don't hesitate to point those out when you find them - you may have a new version that can catch even old pros off-guard, so it is good to pass the word. Besides, amazingly, in this thread, if it lasts long enough, someone will say "Thanks, no one ever warned me about those." Seriously. So you're doing a service, and thanks.

The advice is universal and seems to be true - never click on a link that is sent to you via email. I don't even click on links sent to me in email by my employer.

You will see reports here about fraudulent sales on eBoy using hijacked accounts. This is where they get those accounts. Having captured your username and password, they login and post a bunch of phony ads, demanding to be paid via paypal (if they hijacked your paypal account) or via wire or bank transfer (if they only got your eboy account). If you don't login to eBoy all the time, you may not notice - the auctions are usually one-day auctions, posted with no reserve, in areas where only a search would find them - like Sigma SD9 cameras posted under 'perfume' (one I caught last night). The ad text will tell the bidder to contact the seller at a different address than via eBoy - and that's how you know it is a hijacked account.

All those hijacked accounts were stolen from people who clicked on the email links and though they were putting their password into paypal or eboy when in fact it was a phony website that collected their data and gave it to crooks.

So thanks again for the warning.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Frank Granovski]

Okay, I just traced another one: Vancouver to Jan Jose to somewhere in Alaska. 😉

 

[yossarian]

Romania has been a hotbed for scams recently as well. Maybe it's vampires...

 

[rover]

I get 3 of those paypay e-mails daily. I also get similar ebay kinds. It's a SCAM! 😎

I agree, I delete these messages regularly.

Some day my accout will be suspended perhaps. What makes me feel like that may be a good thing? 😎

 

[BrianShaw]

Like many others have said... I delete without even opening. My ebay/paypal accounts have never been affected in any way by ignoring these 'update' requests. Likewise with the banks and credit cards notices. I once opened a message from my bank, only to find out that they might deny a credit application that I never submitted.

The messages that concern me, however, are those for penis enlargement and Viagra/Cialas. I get several a day. Do they know something I don't know? I once suspected my wife of sending them, but she denies it. I'm still a bit suspicious.

 

[mongo141]

Just forward them to Spoof@paypal.com or spoof@ebay.com They have a team that goes after them..I have turned in hundereds of them,,

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

The messages that concern me, however, are those for penis enlargement and Viagra/Cialas. I get several a day. Do they know something I don't know? I once suspected my wife of sending them, but she denies it. I'm still a bit suspicious.

You're lucky. I get 2000 a day of those v-i-a-g-r-a things. That's almost 100 every hour.

Right now there are 60,000 in the junk box.

 

[kmack]

I love the phishing e-mails.
I run Linux as my primary machine for use on the Internet. Linux can not be affected by any know spyware currently in the wild. So when I get a phishing e-mail I fire up the lynx browser, (a text only browser) go to the phishing site and fill in the all of the contact information with the information of our local FBI office. Those guys are lots of fun after they get spammed.

 

[George S.]

And don't forget the quickest way to spot these fake messages is the greeting. Ebay and PayPal will always address you by your full name, not "Dear valued member".

If its really that urgent, I'm sure ebay would get me a notice in the mail or something.

Even if your credit card info was expired, you'd find that out when you were on the official site trying to bid on something or trying to pay for something. Onlt THEN do you update anything, and make sure the address begins with "https" for "secure site".

 

[SolaresLarrave]

I started getting the 409 Nigerian scheme, and later, when I advertised items for sale here and in PNet, even the famous "I have a debtor who can send you a check for $3000, you deduct your part and send me the rest" kind of story.

I replied to one that the camera had been sold, and to other I simply told I would never sell anything to someone whose English spelling was that abysmal.

So, Marc, don't worry, you just had your first encounter with the (cyber)predators of today.

 

[Frank Granovski]

This is one of "the pill" spams I received today:

http://dmfghjkbl.gururatings.info/e/?aceiblxwqowydmzctfghjk

Notice that the nurse isn't wearing a bra and "the pill" only takes 15 minutes to work. 😎