carsey

Just recieved this in my hotmail inbox. Looks so fake, i cant believe it.




Come on.... spot the obvious errors!!!

I also get spoof like that from a fake ebay person aswell. They must think im stupid.

I am not even a member of paypal lol

i can see 5 errors straight off

MunkyPhil

I get a lot of stuff from large multi national banks, with a .co.uk in the address. It isn't really funny how many people get suckered into these scams, I see stuff in the news trying to educate people but it doesn't seem to get through.

The best piece of advice I did hear was that if you're on a web page asking for personal details, the web address should start with https, not http. The 's' stands for secure.

carsey

Great advice, Phil.

*Just look at the website the link points to. Really looks to be a paypal one doesnt it.

*Witch, A spelling mistake

*message (lots of numbers) as a subject. Hmmmm.
*Telephone number has some letters in it and a (R) symbol

*Message dont even originate from paypal.

K-B

Yes, that's an easy-to-spot fake. But there are some that are downright authentic-looking and convincing. The way I determine whether or not they are authentic is to hover the mouse pointer over the link, and (at least in Firefox) the destination link shows in the bar at the bottom of the window. If its fake it usually starts with a combination of numbers and letters, is not https like MunkyPhil said, and does not usually have a .com in it.

Joefireline

I've had a few of them. Reported them to PayPal straght away. I've also got ones from what they say is eBay, and I don't even have a eBay account on that email account. I use a different email. You just gotta put random things in the sign in part, such as 'Haha! You think you can hack my account? Never!' as the password, and something else for username...

Done_Fishin

I don't know aboput you guys but I have several world-wide accounts for mail, most of which are used for one purpose .. so that the spammers and phishers can send as much as they like to those addresses without getting close to my real everyday address. I mainly get spam on that because somewhere someone must be trying every possible combination of addresses on my ISP, otherwise I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone with webspace is "broadcast" so that spammers can find them. Doesn't take much guessing from the site name user~@blahblah.com to find the owner.

anyway, whatever I see come into my account that isn't from anyone i know personally ( especially banks & stuff) gets binned ASAP without being read. My bank knows my snail mail address NOT my e-mail. My true e-mail is reserved for trusted sources. So if you haven't already done so yet, get a yahoo or hotmail for just those moments when a site asks you for a confirmation address, then if you are added to a spam list, yahoo/hotmail/google will filter them out for you. So far I get the least spam on Google.

crazijoe

A good rule is Paypal will never send links in their emails. They alway tell you to open a bowser and log into your account.

Generally this should be done on any email from any finacial institution. Never click on the link in the email. Always open a browser and log into your account.

8210GUY

I've had a couple suggesting they were from my bank, and TBH if I didn't know what to look out for, and wasn't always looking for the scam, I would of fallen for it, it was that realistic they said about the bank updating it's system, and low and behold I went to my banks site (directly not using their link) and they were updating it, the ONLY thing that made me doubt it's authenticity was there was no padlock at the bottom of the browser (defining secure site), so I phoned my bank and they quickly confirmed it as a scam mail, but I would expect 9 out of 10 people to of fallen for that mail as it was so real it was scary, even down to the domain name, apparently the police are investigating for fraud and numerous other offences including copyright infringement.

ebackhus

I've gotten my share of spoof e-mails as well. My sharp eyes and untrusting heart quickly forward them to the respective fraud departments.

Done_Fishin

Isn't there a site that is supposed to deal with this stuff, remember sending some stuff there "way back" but never heard anything about it nor do I remember who they were any more.

sinclair_tm

ya'll are forgetting the most important part of fake emails, real emails will always use your name. fake ones use your email as the name, or some generaic tearm, like dear sir, or dear so&so bank user. so when i get emails from ebay or paypal, thats the first thing i look for, my name, and if its not there, then i know its spam.
i second the spam email account thing, thats what my hotmail account is for. then i have 2 more accounts from different websites, and one of them has never ever gotten one spam email.

ebackhus

fraud@ebay.com, spoof@paypal.com, etc. I just send it to them.

carsey

With eBay they always should have you eBay account name where it says Hi bblah blah blah.

Thats my 1st spam i have recieved from PP

karusho

The good thing about GMail is that you can setup multiple spammail accounts.

yustr

On the other side of the same coin, just tonight I went to verify a new bank account on paypal and they asked for my electronic access infomation. Ummm - no! This had to be legit as I initiated the action. Why would they do something so stupid? Or maybe it was a really really good phish - where they can intercept someone going to a site.

scottydont2841

HAHA so fake, i get these everyday, i even get ones from the bank of america, saying if i dont log into my account it will be destroyed, gosh darn when was the last time i logged into my virtual non existant bank of america account, that i use for convienience as i live in england.

i also get the ones from "ebay" where they are so dumb they post the link in the email of the redirected site, so instead of desguising it as www.ebay.co.uk

u get

143.13.53.55.gbworld.com/signin.ebay.co.uk

makes me laugh, well at least they are good for giggles.

Fr4665

my rents get the fake emails aswell and was stupid enough to fall for it even i told him its a fake ! what ever had to lock the paypal acoutn changed the passwords twice and no problems.

the ones my rents got looked more suspicious and better done with the actual paypal logo etc.

ebackhus

My folks just give me a call and ask me to verify it. I ask them to place the mouse over any links and read what the status bar says. That way I can verify and they can visually see what to look for.

There's a guy who comes into my library to use the Intarwebs. The screens here at set for 1024x768 so I can read them pretty easily from my desk. He gets the spam letters and items from Nigerian royalty like we do. But he responds. Seriously.

carsey

Mad. Maybe hotmail should take action against known spam addresses. Such as block them from passing through the server.

scottydont2841

haha the nigerian royalty by far the funniest