PayPal Look-alike Scam

Phishing Defined:

Phishing is the act of tricking someone into giving them confidential information or tricking them into doing something that they normally wouldn’t do or shouldn’t do. For example: sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

The following email notification is NOT from PayPal, it is a scam known as Phishing. The purpose is to get you to respond by clicking the link labeled "Dispute Transaction" so they can get your private login information for your PayPal account. If you wish to check on your account you should manually type https://www.paypal.com into your email browser's address line.

If you already replied to the email shown below, immediately call or go to PayPal and report the incident to PayPal's security division and CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD.
 

The above image is that received by the author on 3-10-2006, supposedly from PayPal [service@paypal.com], which has been spoofed. Of course it was immediately determined to be a scam by right clicking on the email and selecting view source. The result showed that the email was an image on a remote web site instead of printed text and the link associated with the email would take the user to a PayPal look-alike web site, where they would have asked you to login and collected your login information.

If you received the email pictured above, please report it to us so we can track this information. But the most immediate action you should take is report it to PayPal and change your password.

Another Phishing method is shown below in the form of an email received, supposedly, from eBay. Examine it closely and see if you can see the problems with clicking the link. (Please do NOT click on the link as you will be taken to an unsafe site.

This was very well written and fairly well disguised in the display of the email link within the email. One would look at the link and think it was actually going to take you to an eBay site.

If you clicked the link you would inform the sender that:

• They reached a good email address that may be sold to other phishers and spammers
• They could learn your confidential eBay information and ruin you eBay status besides hurting you financially.

If you look closely, the address begins with http:// instead of https:// and if you investigate the underlying link location, it will not take you to eBay.com but cordet.cc (an offshore site). Not to mention that eBay does not send out emails of this sort.

Please, be aware that phishers are very active right now because users are naive and not cautious enough to prevent them from using these methods to make a lot of money by ripping them off. Don't let yourself be one of them.

Also be aware that spammers are very active with phony eCard’s now that are used to lure you into clicking a link to retrieve your special eCard but instead only confirms for them that they have a good email address to sell to other spammers.