March 17, 2005
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[grimly] Tell you what, one has got to be SO careful.
There is doubtless a reason bogus emails from eBay, Paypal, etc. are sent overnight. I'm not at my Best & Brightest early in the morning, that's for sure.
This morning when I opened my email there was a perplexing message from
Paypal, telling me some man named Peter Philbin had sent me $52:
Couldn't think of any reason anyone should be sending me $52, never
mind some guy of whom I'd never heard. There was a link to "View
the details of this transaction online" which I went ahead and
clicked. It sent me to what surely appeared to be a Paypal login
screen, so I entered my password.It was running slow and nothing was happening, so I hit the "Stop" button. Then it was time to take Dmitry to school.
While on the way, I finally woke up sufficiently to think "Anne, you
are very, very stupid." It finally dawned on me that likely
wasn't legitimate, and I'd sleepily handed over my Paypal
password. Mercy Maud, was I anxious to dump the kid and get home!Went to Paypal and logged in. First attempt it said my password wasn't valid.
Oh, NO!!!
Tried again, and this time it worked.
Quickly reset my password. Also noted there was no $52 payment to
my account. The last transaction was on the 15th, for the vintage
layette pattern Cindy located for me (has a kimono in it!).
Whew!What's unnerving, however, is that when I got the email from Paypal
saying my password had been changed, it was from "service@paypal.com"
just exactly like the bogus email. Oh, and it WAS bogus . . .
forwarded that message to spoof@paypal.com and they confirmed it wasn't
from them.The thieves are gettin' sneakier and sneakier.
Comments (7)
I've gotten emails like that, Anne. They look SO REAL! It's hard to believe they can't be caught somehow!
Glad you didn't get nabbed by it though.
me<><
I get a boat load of 'em, and since the time I foolishly and ineptly handed my eBay password over to someone, with the resultant headache from that episode, I've never come close to being tricked.
Until this morning.
Now I'm wide awake I can readily see where I ought to have known it was false...I've received quite a bit of money via Paypal, yet there's never been a "you must accept this payment" requirement. The money is simply placed in my account and sits there till I do something with it. No action on my part is required.
See, I know that, but at 6-something in the morning, not all my cylinders are firing, unfortunately.
I'm sure you've thought of this (especially since I just thought of it while reading your post) but from now on, whenever you get an e-mail from Paypal, don't use the link in the e-mail. Just access Paypal from your bookmarks if you feel the need to check it out. That way, you don't even have to worry about the logic of "does this sound real" or not -- you just never use an e-mail link that could redirect you. I suppose this advice would apply to any kind of on-line dealings, really -- don't click on or copy the link in the e-mail, go in by bookmark or typing the base URL and then navigate your way in.
If I'm not expecting an email from ebay or paypal (etc), I just send 'em on to the spoof@ and like pentamom, I don't link into them from an email only from my bookmarks.
Now.....before you get on the computer at 6 am, have yourself a nice cup of coffee and wake up first. I won't even mention my computer mess I caused myself last night while monitoring homework and trying to put some yarn onto a swap board I belong too........
You're right as rain, Jane!
And it's one of those things I "know" but just carelessly didn't do. :^(
The bad guys are always at least one step ahead of the rest of us. You'd think mankind was basically sinful or something.
Wow i'm glad you realized it was a fake !! That is just scary that there are people out there doing this stuff.
Comments are closed.