Paypal - Phishing Anyone?

Here is another Paypal email that was received from someone:

Attention PayPal Online Client:

You have received this email because we have strong reason to believe that your PayPal account had been recently compromised. In order to prevent any activity from occurring we are required to open an investigation into this matter.

If your account informations are not updated within the next 72 hours, then we will assume this account is and will be suspended. We apologize for this inconvenience, but the purpose of this verification is to ensure that your PayPal account has not been fraudulently used and to combat fraud.

Please login into your PayPal Online account and complete verification process

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you and we would like to thank you for your cooperation as we review this matter.

If you have a Paypal account and receive this email, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK IN THE EMAIL!. Instead go directly to the Paypal official website - Paypal.com - and check your account from there!



*Hint - If you put your cursor over the blue, underlined link in the email you will see that the link does NOT go to the offical Paypal site - it goes somewhere else!

Here Is YET ANOTHER Paypal-Related "Phish"!

Here is yet another copy of an email that I got in my inbox:


Warning : Your credit card will expire soon.

- You may no longer be able to use PayPal

To avoid any interruption to your service, please update your credit card by following the link below :

https://www.paypal.com/~

Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and
you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal
account and click the Help link located in the top right corner of any
PayPal page.

PayPal Email ID PP-~


While the link on the email includes Paypal's legitimate website address, a quick check of the link shows that if you click on that link it will take you to an entirely different website!

So you really have to be careful! If you have a Paypal account and get an email just like the one above, then you should go directly to the PayPal Website and check the status of your Paypal account.

Do not click on a link provided in an email! Go directly to the Paypal website!

Viagra !??????????????????????

Seems to be a very POPULAR choice as far as email spam is concerned!

I was just checking my spam mail today and saw that I got at least 2 emails today - junkmail really - concerning viagra!

I did a check on Google's search engine and found that there are over 81 MILLION search engine results for the word viagra!

Ringtone Advertisements!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never seen so much ringtone advertisements in all my life!

I'm moderating some "comments" for one of my blogs and the bulk of these comments seem to be advertising ringtones! I mean what is up with that? Do these people get a commission or something? Are they making their own ringtones and are trying to sell them?

I have a Verizon wireless cellphone myself and I can really only use ringtones that Verizon sells itself.

I Won The Lottery?

Here is another "lottery winner" email that I got:

CONFIRM YOUR ONLINE WINNING!!!

DAYZERS LOTTERY NETHERLAND
Paleisstraat 5,2514 JA Den Haag
Netherlands
Email:inforesulthouse@xxx.net
www.xxxxxx.nl

RESULTS
FOR FIRST CATEGORY

This is to inform you that your email ID has won
Euro 500.000.00 in the first dip of our computer ballot Email lottery
with the said winning numbers giving below, Award Notice!!!

Ref:
Number:xx-xxx
Batch:Number:xx-xxxx
Ticket:Number:xx-xxxx
Serial:
Number xx-xxxxxx

To claim your winning, you should contact the OFFICIAL and APPROVED agency here in Holland-Netherlands urgently:-

Mr. ~
Tel: xxx-xxxx
FAX: xxx- xxx
Email:inforesulthouse@xxx.net


You are also advice to furnish them with the following information:-

Your Names:-
Telephone / Fax-
Your Nationality {Your country of Origin}-
Ticket number-
Ref- Number-

Congratulations once again from management and staff of this company,
and thanking you for being a lucky winner of our promotions program.

Regards
Mrs.~
Public Relation Officer
Email:inforesulthouse@xxx.net
www.~

NB: On contact your claims agents will issue you all further directives as regards the claims and transfer Procedures.

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

What are the odds that any one of these "lottery winning emails will ever be legitimate?

Do You Have A Paypal Account?

Then you are going to have to be VERY careful with the email that you get! Here is a copy of a recent email that was sent to someone:

PayPal is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of buyers and sellers. 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.

Recently, our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your account. In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement access to your account will be limited. This is a fraud prevention measure meant to ensure that your account is not compromised.

In order to secure your account we may require some specific information from you. We encourage you to log in by clicking on the link below and complete the requested form as soon as possible.


https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

Ignoring our request, for an extended period of time, may result in account limitations or may result in eventual account closure.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is
a security measure meant to help protect you and your account.
We apologize for any inconvenience.


Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department


PayPal Email ID PPxxx

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Please do not respond to this e-mail as your reply will not be received.

Now this email looks legitimate! It has all of the paypal logos included with the email BUT if you take a look at the link that they want you to go to you will see that it goes to an entirely different site! (Also this could be a good legal case for Paypal because whoever sent this email is using Paypal's official (and I'm guessing copyrighted) logos and Paypal could possible have a very good (and profitable) copyright infringement case againt whoever sent this email!

So please be careful when you get email like this. If you have a paypal account and you get an email like this then contact Paypal directly! Do not click on any links from the emails!

"You Have 1 New Alert Message!"

You have 1 new Alert Message !

Resolution Center: Your account is limited! Click to Resolve

Thank you for using Bank of America Investment Services, Inc. !

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response.

Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender Equal Housing Lender
© 2008 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.

Email ID: xxxxxxx

The most ironic thing about this email that was in my inbox is that I don't even have an account there!

Please be careful and avoid scams (or in this case "phishing") attempts to get your personal financial information!

How do you avoid such attempts to get your personal information? Do NOT click on the links!

Here Is Another Email That I Am Not Going To Be Tricked Into Answering!

Dear ~,

You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Who's Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2008-2009 "Honors Edition" of the registry.

We are pleased to inform you that on March 21st, your candidacy was approved. Your confirmation for inclusion will be effective within five business days, pending our receipt of the enclosed application.

The Office of the Managing Director appoints individuals based on a candidate's current position, and usually with information obtained from researched executive and professional listings. The director thinks you may make an interesting biographical subject, as individual achievement is what Who's Who is all about. Upon final confirmation you will be listed among thousands of accomplished individuals in the Who's Who Registry. There is no cost to be included.

We do require additional information to complete the selection process and kindly ask that you access this form on our website by Clicking Here.

Sincerely,
Matthew Johnson
Managing Director

Madison Who's Who - ~, NY 11101

Madison Who's Who is not associated or affiliated with Marquis Who's Who or any other Who's Who.

And to make matters worsse they didn't even have the correct name!

Now if you're thinking that this could all be a mistake and that this could be a legitimate piece of email, I had a chance to look at the "link that they wanted me to click without actually clicking on the link.

The result?

I'm glad I didn't click on the link!

Do You Have A Paypal Account?

Then be very wary if you get an email such as this one:

Dear Member,

Your PayPal account has expired.

You must renew it immediately or your account will be closed.

If you intend to use this service in the future, you must take action at once!

To continue click here, login to your PayPal account and follow the steps.

Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a respons(e). For assistence, log in to your PayPal account and click the Help link located in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

PayPal Email ID #

Of course the "link that they want you to click on does not go to the paypal site - it goes somewhere else.

If you have any doubts about your paypal account then you should contact paypal directly - they have a very secure website.

Cookies?

Here is a copy of a recent email that I got:

Hi

A few months back, ~ was approached by an advertiser, offered lots of $$$, and asked to include a spyware cookie on all of our member sites. We refused on the spot.

You install (our service) to track visitors to your site NOT to open yourself and your visitors up to being spied upon by phantom advertising corporations.

It appears, however, that other players in the world of webstats were happy to take up this offer.

We were shocked to discover just today that another well known stats provider is allowing up to 9 cookies to be installed in the browser of every visitor that hits one of their member websites. This means that the provider is making money by transmitting data on you and your visitors to a third party advertiser. Not only that, but to add insult to injury, the cookies are causing the member websites to load very slowly too.

In light of this, (we) wants to assure you that we track your visitors for you, only you and not any one else.

Foreclosure101: Be Careful Of Spam!

Here is a recent blog post that I posted to my blog about foreclosures:

Foreclosure101: Be Careful Of Spam!

Be Careful of Spam

We Suspect Unauthorized ATM Activity On Your Account!

Here is a copy of a recent email that I received:

Dear ~,

We recently reviewed your account, and we suspect an unauthorized ATM based transaction. Therefore as a preventive measure we will temporary limit your access to sensitive Abbey features.

To ensure that your account is not compromised, please login to your Abbey Online Banking and verify your identity to prevent deactivation.

SERVICE: Abbey Online Banking.

What you need to do:

- Go to: Abbey Online Banking

- Login to Online Banking.

Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,

Abbey National Centre

****************************************************************************

For any inquiries, contact Customer Service.

****************************************************************************


Of course I have never heard of this place before!

But I post it here so that you can see that this is just yet another example of attempts to get one's account information.

If you get any kind of email like this and you DL have an account with the company in question - DO NOT RESPOND BY CLICKING ON ANY OF THE LINKS THAT ARE PROVIDED!

Call the company itself and find out for sure whether or not there is something wrong with your account - whether it be your banking account or some other company that you have a financial account with!

Ebay Scam!

I am a member of Ebay and so far I haven't had an problems with it. But I recently became aware of someone else's experience that really should "raise a warning flag" when it happens.

A bidder put in a bid for a certain, specific item but lost the bid to a higher bidder - which of course can happen.

BUT the bidder then received an email from the person that placed the item (or so they said they were the person that placed the item) asking him if he still wanted the item. Of course the bidder said yes and plans were made to get the information about payment and shipping. Then the bidded gets a second email from someone who wanted to give them different information about where to send the payment. (The second email came with the information that now the item was available at a lower price.) This raised a "warning flag" with the bidder and he decided that he no longer wanted the item.

Unfortunately the bidder has been receiving email after email about the item and whether or not they still want it or not - which is becoming quite a nuisance.

Now there are some things that I could say here about how this was done but I don't want to give anyone any ideas on how they can do the same thing.

Why Do People Spam?

Why do people spam?

They want to get their message across to as many people as possible! I'm at a message board now that has to do with people having problems with there blogs and there are a lot of spam messages - particularly one from some kind of escort service located outside the United States.

I'm assuming that they are spamming this particular message board because the message board has a lot of traffic so that means that their spam messages about their escort servie / dating service has the potential to be seen by a lot of people.

You may laugh or be generally irritated by these tactics but the fact of the matter remains that the more number of people that read the spam the more the potential of someone actually wanting to find out more about it! It's a "numbers" thing!

The Junk Mail Seems To Be Getting More Sophisticated!

There seemed to be a time - way back when - when you got junk email the messge was included in the email.

Now I am seeing more and more junk mail that has "eye-catching" subject lines like "reduce your debt" or "free money" - please see my Grant Basics 101 Blog - but the body of the junk email sometimes just includes a line or two prompting one to "click here".

Of course this means that the junk email wants you to go to their website.

You just can't be too careful these days! Legitimate-looking clicks could be not-so legitimate!

When these kinds of emails show up in my inbox - I delete them!