Another Paypal Phishing Scam!

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I Almost Thoght That This Was Real!

I got this email recently:

Your Payment Agreement

Dear customer,

You have set up a Payment Agreement to automatically pay your eBid seller fees with PayPal. The description of your agreement is shown below:

Description: eBid Seller Fees

If you did not authorize this agreement please click the link bellow:

https://www.paypal.co.uk/xxxxxxxxxxxx

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 in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 使1999-2009 PayPal. All rights reserved.

PayPal (Europe) S.a r.l. & Cie, S.C.A.
Societe en Commandite par Actions
Registered Office: 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449, Luxembourg
RCS Luxembourg B 118 349


Now since I do belong to Paypal, I almost thought that this email was real until I looked at the provided link more closely! The link DOES NOT take you to a legitimate Paypal site! Instead it goes somewhere else.

If you have a Paypal account you have to be very careful when you get any Paypal-related email. Since belonging to Paypal means that you are doing financial transactions online you want to be very careful that no one else - besides you and Paypal - have access to your account! If you do get a Paypal-related email you should not click on any link provided! What you should do is go directly to your Paypal account and see if there are any problems with your Paypal account.

I have had the experience of talking to Paypal on the phone and so far I haven't had any problems with them yet - indeed a few of those times the people that I talked to were very helpful!

These kinds of emails are sent because people are "phishing" for you account information. Once they have your account information they may be able to withdraw your Paypal funds!

So you have to be very careful!

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

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*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. !

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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!

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!