Paypal scam?

I recieved this email today
Dear member,

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 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. This is a fraud prevention measure meant to ensure that your account is not compromised.

We requested information from you for the following reason:

A recent review of your account determined that we require some additional information from you in order to provide you with secure service.

Case ID Number: PP-053-253-371

This is a second reminder to log in to PayPal as soon as possible. Once you log in, you will be provided with a step to restore your account access.We appreciate your understanding as we work to ensure account safety.In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement, your account access will remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to log in to your PayPal account as soon as possible to help avoid this.

Use the link below to access our mainframe database and confirm the information we have on file for your account.

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


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

PayPal is committed in assisting law enforcement with any inquires related to attempts to misappropriate personal information with the intent to commit fraud or theft. Information will be provided at the request of law enforcement agencies to ensure that impersonators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law..

Thank you for your patience as we work together to protect your account.

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department
PayPal Email ID PP560
I went to the link and was required to sign in using my password, I did not sign in and forwarded the email to paypal. It may be legit, because we did modify our address a couple weeks ago, and the site looks just like paypal but I need to be certain.

Looks like a phishing attempt to me.

Casey,

It may well be a fraud. Don't use that link to log in. If you have any doubt at all, just type www.paypal.com into your browser and go directly to their site.

That is definately a scam.Paypal does a god job of protecting your assets if you follow a few simple rules.

Paypal will never ask for your password unless you are logging in
They will always refer to you by your real name by email.
They will always give you the last 4 digits of your account number.So if someone asks for your bank account number without first giving you the last 4,you are getting scammed.

These scammers as slick as hot poop on an icy sidewalk.You have to be carefull.I gave up my password on a scam a few months ago and caught it within 5 minutes of what I was doing.I immediately changed the password and called Paypal.Someone in Colorado was already trying to access the account.

The screen I was emailed was a spitting image of a Paypal log in screen.I right clicked properties and saw a redirect in the URL.

You gots to be carefull.

Andy Sury

Yep, it's a load of crap. I get them at least once a month. Just wait until you get the one claiming your account will be closed if you don't update your information.

It doesnt look like a scam at all to me. The URL redirects to the legit Paypal site and nobody asked you to email them your password. I would call them and get it resolved. Scams generally direct you to a false URL (i.e. www.paypal-info.com) or ask for you to email information.

Jamie

Yep, I've gotten both types of those.

Warning, unless you update your info, your account will be closed! Please click our bogus link and give us all your info. Thanks.

Just everybody be careful. I got the same email from both Ebay and Paypal yesterday.

And Paypal is a secure site. But that link starts with http: instead of https:

I get those kinda of emails from paypal and ebay all the time. They just go into the trash. I go directly to the site if I have business to do. Also many of those scams don't have the little lock thingie in the corner indicating it's a secure site. Red flag!!!

I just `got this email from Paypal

Dear Casey Hulse,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your concerns. I am happy
to assist you further.

If you notice that the email does not address you by your first and last
name. You will know an email is from PayPal if it addresses you by your
full name.

Please remember these steps to help protect your PayPal account from
Unauthorized Account Access.

Emails - Make sure they are sent from PayPal

1. If you receive an email and are unsure whether it is from PayPal,
open a new web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer or Netscape) and type in
the following: https://www.paypal.com/ Don't click on any link in an email
which seems suspicious to you.

2. Some spoof websites will send emails that pretend to come from
PayPal to entice you to log in at the spoof URL. Be extremely cautious of
emails that direct you to a website that asks for sensitive information.

3. Stay safe; don't respond to emails asking for any of the following:

· Your password and email address combination
· Credit card numbers
· Bank account numbers
· Social security numbers
· Drivers license number
· First and Last Names

If you have surrendered financial or password information to a suspicious
email or website, promptly report this to the issuing institution as well
as change your password and secret answers on your PayPal account. This can
be completed in the Profile section of your account.

Email Greeting -
They almost got me, the site looked identical to paypals site.

Hey Casey, what's your password?

Yes it's a scam...

Casey....

As the others have pointed out, this is a scam. If you have any doubts..go to the Paypal site <not from the link in that email!> and contact their security department.

I forwarded a similar email I received to them about a year ago...they appreciate trying to track down the perps. These Paypal phishing scams have been around for awhile now.


Mike Palmerio

These are also pretty easy to catch if you just click on the link and look at the address line. They will all be some wierd address. They will never say www.paypal.com/XXXXX, it will always be a wierd address you have never seen before. The website you are directed to will look just like Ebay, or Paypal, but in reality, its just some scammers site, trying to get your info so they can steal from your account. I always give them bogus in formation. I like to think that got scammed in return when they try to hit paypal multiple times with my fake information.

S~

I have gotten 3 emails like that recently. I have contacted Paypal and they are definately scams. I got the following one twice:



LEGAL NOTICE
The following message is an email sent to you by an administrator of "PayPal.com".
If this message is spam, contains abusive or other comments you find offensive please contact the webmaster at the following address: [email protected]




Message sent to you follows:





Dear PayPal client,

While performing it's regular scheduled monthly billing address check our system found incompatible information which seams to be no longer the same with your current credit card information that we have on file. If you changed your billing information or if you moved from you previous address please follow up the link bellow and update your billing information: If you didn't change any of this information you still need to follow up the previous link and update your existing billing information because it means that our database regular scheduled update wasn't made correctly. Choosing to ignore this message will result in to a temporary suspension of your account within 24 hours, until you will choose to solve this unpleasant situation.

We apologies for any inconvinience this may caused you and we strongly advise you to update your information you have on file with us. Clicking https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login_ you will avoid any possible futuring billing problems with your account.

Best regards,
- PayPal Team.

This is what PayPal emailed me back:

Dear ,

Thank you for writing to PayPal regarding the email message you
received
that appeared to be from eBay.

As you may have already suspected, this email was not sent by eBay.
These emails, commonly referred to as spoofs, are sent by fraudulent
sources posing as eBay in an attempt to collect sensitive financial
information or passwords.

Please know that PayPal and eBay is committed to the security of our
sites and our members. We review every report we receive and forward
all
vital information on to the appropriate authorities for further action
and tracking. We work actively and aggressively in partnership with
many
agencies, ISP's and law enforcement groups to support their
investigation of these fraudulent entities. As a public company, we
rely
on the same agencies you do to pursue these fraudulent activities. You
may also wish to contact your ISP or email service provider for further
information or instructions.

Now that you have received a spoofed email, your email address has been
collected by a fraudulent source. As a result, you may continue to
receive spoofed emails for some time as these groups move from ISP to
web hosting sites setting up fraudulent email addresses, fake sites and
sending spoofed emails. PayPal and eBay has enacted several
preventative
measures and increased information available on both sites help pages
to
help educate our members in spotting fake emails.

In the future, we advise you to be very cautious of any email appearing
to be from eBay or PayPal that asks you to submit financial information
such as your credit card number or any type of password. As for eBay,
they will NEVER ask you for certain financial information such as
passwords, bank account or credit card numbers, Personal Identification
Numbers (PINs), or Social Security numbers in an email. All sensitive
information should be submitted on a secure page located on the eBay or
PayPal site.

If you have any doubt about whether an email message is from PayPal,
please forward it immediately to [email protected]. For eBay spoofed
emails, please forward those to [email protected]. Please do not respond
to
it or click on any of the links in the email message. Please do not
change the subject line or edit the email in any way.

If you have already entered sensitive information as mentioned above,
you should take immediate action to protect your identity and online
accounts. If you only clicked on a link inside of a spoofed email, you
may also want to run a security scan on your computer. eBay has a help
page with valuable information regarding the steps you should take to
protect yourself. Below is a link to this page:

http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/index.html

Once again, thank you for alerting us to the spoofed email you
received.
Your vigilance helps us ensure that PayPal and eBay remain a safe and
vibrant online marketplace.

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department
PayPal, an eBay Company

*******************************************
Important: eBay will not ask you for sensitive personal information
(such as your password, credit card and bank account numbers, Social
Security numbers, etc.) in an email. Learn more account protection tips
at:
http://www.pages.ebay.com/help/account_protection.html
____________________________________________

For the latest eBay announcements, please check:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml
_____________________________________________


************************************************************************
This
email is sent to you by the contracting entity to your User Agreement,
either PayPal Inc or PayPal (Europe) Limited. PayPal(Europe) Limited is
authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the UK
as an electronic money institution.
************************************************************************

well you got your answer.
just because it looks real and sounds great and profesional and has a neat looking link on it "to paypal" for you tolong on to. it's best just to open another browser and go there (www.paypal.com) directly , like that dude said.
people can set up sites like in that email to try and get your PW and log in. and those sites look very real as do the emails themselves

I admit it, I am stupid

The first email I got from them looked so real, I clicked the link, it brought me to a site that looked like Paypals site, so I entered my username and password and then it brought me to a page that asked for my credit card information. At that point I new it was fake. I quickly logged on to the "Rea" Paypal and changed my password.

jglass38 said:

It doesnt look like a scam at all to me. The URL redirects to the legit Paypal site and nobody asked you to email them your password. I would call them and get it resolved. Scams generally direct you to a false URL (i.e. www.paypal-info.com) or ask for you to email information.

Jamie

Click to expand...

Well Jamie, then you would be scammed. I received virtually that same e-mail back in February:

Dear James,

We recently noticed one or more attempts to log in to your PayPal
account from a foreign IP address.

If you recently accessed your account while traveling, the unusual log
in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if you did not
initiate the log ins, please visit PayPal as soon as possible to change
your password:

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

Changing your password is a security measure that will ensure that you
are the only person with access to the account.

Thanks for your patience as we work together to protect your account.

Sincerely,
PayPal

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

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be
answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the
'Help' link in the header of any page.

PayPal Email ID PP321

Click to expand...

Through the "wonders of HTML, they had hidden the real URL to which the link actually would have directed me. Here is the "source" (formatting added by me):

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Message</TITLE>

<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2604" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><TT>Dear James,<BR><BR>We recently noticed one or more attempts to log in
to your PayPal <BR>account from a foreign IP address.<BR><BR>If you recently
accessed your account while traveling, the unusual log <BR>in attempts may have
been initiated by you. However, if you did not <BR>initiate the log ins, please
visit PayPal as soon as possible to change<BR>your password:<BR><BR><A
href="http://200.78.247.207/.secure/us/cgi-bin/webscr_cmd=_login-run/"
target=_blank>https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run</A><BR><BR>Changing
your password is a security measure that will ensure that you <BR>are the only
person with access to the account.<BR><BR>Thanks for your patience as we work
together to protect your
account.<BR><BR>Sincerely,<BR>PayPal<BR><BR>----------------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>Please
do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be<BR>answered.
For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the<BR>'Help' link in
the header of any page.<BR><BR>PayPal Email ID
PP321<BR><BR><BR></TT></DIV></BODY></HTML>

Click to expand...

So while it looks like a legitimate PayPal link, in fact it is directed to http://200.78.247.207/.secure/us/cgi-bin/webscr_cmd=_login-run/ which was on a server located outside the US and has since been shut down after I (an no doubt others) reported it.

Look at this link : https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run. Click on it and see where it takes you.

As I said before, when in doubt, enter www.paypal.com directly into your browser's address line and go to the site directly.

I have gotten a couple of these...just notified PayPal...and sent them all the header info...as well as the html script version of the email...seems when you forward these the graphic disappears...as well as the original header.

I have also gotten three of them from three different nationally known banks in the last week. All three were the same type of phishing scam. Not having ever had an account at any of the three made me realize IMMEDIATELY...but the similarities to the actual bank sites were FLAWLESS...

I sent all the info to all three banks as well...

Watch out for these types of things. Your bank will never ask you for any private information via email either without proper protocols.