This just arrived in my inbox this morning. I do a lot of eBay business and receive my funds through Paypal. According to the message in my inbox, Paypal had just received $26 or so from someone. Did something I have on eBay sell early?
So I clicked on "View the details of this transaction online" and thought I was going into Paypal to see what this person bought (I had already checked eBay but didn't see anything--but if you have a lot of things in your My eBay area, it's not so easy to search through the completed listings).
When I clicked on the "View the details..." link, it took me to a site, but my browser popped something up saying that the site's security certificate was for (and note the subtle difference that makes this so slick but dangerous "paypal.com" and not "www.paypal.com".
Suddenly suspicious, I looked and saw that the link in the email was directing me to some other website and not Paypal.
This is what's known as a "phishing" scam. They are fishing for your personal information so they can get into your Paypal account. If you get an email like this, DELETE IT.
The big risk here is that, should you log-in, the phisher will get your username and password, go to your Paypal account and CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD. That would block you out of your own site, while stealing your money. You'd then have to prove to PayPal that you are you and that site is yours, etc. Big hassle.
Please let others know about this. It's the best attempt at phishing I have seen yet and is likely to make victims out of a lot of good people.
From: service@paypal.com [mailto:service@paypal.com]
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 7:55 AM
To: [my email account]
Subject: Jack Chalker has just sent you $26.00 USD with PayPal [773040]
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Jack Chalker sent you money with PayPal. Jack Chalker is a Verified buyer.
Thank you for using PayPal! The PayPal Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
