Saturday, December 16, 2006

This little phish won't get caught, this time

Go to jim's little Christmas tree farm (link) to see my Christmas tree collection.
Leave a comment on the tree(s) you like, if you like.

I got this e-mail this morning.

I think it is phony and these people are phishing for some vital information from me to steal my identity, if it might be worth stealing.

I have forwarded the e-mail to the REAL PAY PAL for them to check out.

Recently a part of a group was arrested for sending bogus 'second chance offers' to losing eBay bidders. They bilked millions of dollars out of these people who thought they were buying the item they had bid on.

Most of the money is in foreign countries and probably can't be recovered.

The RED text below is suspect. Notice they spelled the word 'below' incorrectly.

THE e-MESSAGE:


From: "service@paypal.com" service@paypal.com
Subject: Account Information Update.
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 02:30:20 +0200
To: (Undisclosed recipient, it came to me)


PayPal is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of customers. To protect the security of your account, PayPal employs some of the most advanced security systems in the world and our anti-fraud teams regularly screen the PayPal system for unusual activity.

We are contacting you to remind you that on 14 Dec 2006
our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your account. In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement and to ensure that your account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited. Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved.

To secure your account and quickly restore full access, we may require some additional information from you for the following reason:

We have been notified that a card associated with your account has been reported as lost or stolen, or that there were additional problems with your card.

This process is mandatory, and if not completed within the nearest time your account or credit card may be subject for temporary suspension.

To securely confirm your PayPal information please click on the link bellow:

http://195.999.138.20/GAWebsite/webscram.html

We encourage you to log in and perform the steps necessary to restore your account access as soon as possible. Allowing your account access to remain limited for an extended period of time may result in further limitations on the use of your account and possible account closure.

For more information about how to protect your account please visit PayPal Security Center. We apologize for any incovenience this may cause, and we appreciate your assistance in helping us to maintain the integrity of the entire PayPal system.

Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team


- - - - - - - - - - - -

The final word:

Hello,

Thank you for writing to eBay [I wrote them too] regarding the email you received.
Emails such as this, commonly referred to as "spoof" or "phished"messages, are sent in an attempt to collect sensitive personal or financial information from the recipients.
We have reported this emailto the appropriate authorities.

Comments:
There's always scammers out there trying to get money from us in any crooked form they can think of! It's a shame isn't it?
 
Both PayPal and eBay, when sending emails to their customers, address the customer with their name that they have set up in each account. If no name is at the beginning of the email, it is bogus. It just amazes me how these scammers are out there cooking up new ways to retrieve information for identity theft. It also makes me sick.
 
Thanks for the warning.
 
Dad,

I used to use paypal but after a certain $ amount of aggregrate purchases using their services, they said I had to provide them my banking information instead of just a credit card number to continue using their services to purchase. They lost my business (not that it effected their bottom-line that much).

Given all the computer theft these days, I still can not believe they made this a "must".
 

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