PayPal scam

[vito]

Yesterday I received an email that appeared to be from PayPal, showing a purchase made on my account for a magazine subscription. Since I didn't order this magazine, I clicked on the link in the email to dispute the charge. This opened a screen where I was asked to sign in to my PayPal account, which I did. But then it said that to complete the action I needed to sign in again with my email provider, and it asked for me to enter my user name and email password. At that point I realized I had been scammed, and was totally pissed at myself for not being more careful. I closed the screen and immediate then went to PayPal and went through the multi step process to change my password for that service. I also contacted my bank to which my PayPal account is linked to make sure that no PayPal transactions would be accepted without direct contact with me. I guess I acted quickly enough because a bit later I was able to get back to PayPal and confirmed that no new transactions had been recorded and now with my new password I no longer need to worry about it being illegally used.

I'm posting this here because the email seemed so genuine that at first I did not give it the scrutiny that I should have done. I should have held my cursor over the "From" addressee and seeing what appeared (when I did that later it was then obvious that the email was not really from PayPal). Hopefully this warning will help anyone here from being caught up in this particular scam.

 

[ronto]

I stopped using EBAY when they made PayPal mandatory in most cases. :x

 

[pete44ru]

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I stopped using PayPal because of the anti-gun stance of their corporate owners, E-Bay - may the fleas of a thousand camels infest their crotches...……


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[Ale-8(1)]

We have noticed that there are instances where folks post their email address openly here in the site. This is a bad idea, as it sets you up to be victimized by various flavors of scammers. It is strongly recommended that you initially make contact with each other via the PM system to exchange email addresses in that secure medium.

Please consider this a "public service announcement" and not a "warning". You are responsible for your actions in this matter. Be careful.

 

[Bob Wright]

We received a letter from PayPal regarding Nita's account, and giving a series of "X'es" for her account number.

I composed a letter denying our opening of any such account, mailed it, and requested a letter confirming receipt of that letter. Snail mail, indeed!

Bob Wright

 

[Bull Barrel]

PayPal ceased being part of eBay as of July 2015.
In 2020 PayPal will cease processing eBay payments.

 

[hittman]

We have noticed that there are instances where folks post their email address openly here in the site. This is a bad idea, as it sets you up to be victimized by various flavors of scammers. It is strongly recommended that you initially make contact with each other via the PM system to exchange email addresses in that secure medium.

Please consider this a "public service announcement" and not a "warning". You are responsible for your actions in this matter. Be careful.

^ This! ^

This 1000 times over is excellent advice.

 

[Pat-inCO]

We have noticed that there are instances where folks post their email
address openly here in the site. This is a bad idea, as it sets you up to be
victimized by various flavors of scammers. It is strongly recommended
that you initially make contact with each other via the PM system to
exchange email addresses in that secure medium.

Excellent idea.

Another take is to get an e-mail forwarding address. Some are free, while
others have a fee. Many of those will have extensive filtering done to
anything that is run to that address. - - I have one that I have been using
for over twenty years (Ham radio associated) and that address has been
posted on the internet since 1996. Knock on my wooden head, I have not
received any spam type e-mail from it.

If any question the number of places that address is posted, the main
place is my web page that has over 800 individual web pages with that
address in all of them.

I DO receive several spams each month, but all of those are from other
routes to my base e-mail address. And I'll add that they come from other
people sending/forwarding notes I have sent that contained by base
address (corrected that problem so it doesn't happen again).

The biggest problem that I see is when (not if) PayPal gives-out/sells your
e-mail address. That happened to me once, and it took a while to correct
that. Also why I don't use paypal any more.

 

[mohavesam]

Use PayPal, support Brady. Facts are facts.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

Don't forget about phone scams using medicare, social security and the IRS as cover. Those places will never call you.

...oh yeah and Microsoft.

 

[vito]

I only use PayPal when I am totally unfamiliar with the vendor and do not want to provide them with my credit card number. Maybe four or five times a year, at most.

 

[Kevin]

Paypal is a large company. I had to look it up, but they are right around the middle of the Fortune 500 biggest companies. They are also associated with several large credit card companies.

Sometimes companies get so intertwined, it's hard to stop supporting a specific company because of their business dealings with other companies. We might not even realize. Telecom companies come to mind in this way.

 

[Jeepnik]

I'm pretty darned careful and so far so good. What drives me crazy is when I tell my wife something is a scam, she insists it's real. So far I've managed to get her to delete all such things. But someday...

 

[exavid]

About 12 years ago or so I used PayPal quite a bit when I had my shop refurbishing old Goldwings and salvaging parts from those that wouldn't be profitable to rebuild. I sold and bought a lot of pieces and parts through eBay using Paypal and had no problems with any transactions.

I don't use it anymore because I don't do that many transactions these days.

 

[SamV]

I get PayPal scam emails multiple times a year. It is just one more of the regular scams out there. Heck, if I didn't get scam and junk emails, I would almost never get emails.

 

[pete44ru]

its truly amazing how people will troll a thread and change to total intent of a message.

the guy is giving a warning about a scam, and people give us their reasons for not using ebay or paypal.

is it that difficult to stay ON POINT, or is it just an attempt to increase post count?

Cool it, everybody - the internet police have arrived...…….. :roll:


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[wiz1997]

Just had to sit through a 45 minute on-line class given by my employers IT group about how e-mail is being used for "phishing" to gain access to our e-mail accounts and the companies server.

On trick was to contact you with something that looks familiar to just about everyone such as something from PayPal.

Many times clues to attempts by hackers can be found in the SUBJECT line, the FROM line and links in the text of the message.

Missed spelled words and incorrect Grammer are also clues.

When given a link to click on, don't.

Move your cursor over the link without clicking on it, this is called hovering.

When you hover over a link it should show you where the link will take you.

If the link info shown on the e-mail does not match the info shown when you hover over the link, DO NOT click on the link.

In the FROM line hackers will use words almost spelled correctly, hoping you won't catch the misspelling and be reading so fast you'll a miss it.

A message from a legitimate source will not have spelling errors.

If uncertain about why you got the e-mail do not use the link provided in the e-mail, find an alternate way of contacting the sender.

 

[Rick Courtright]

The biggest problem that I see is when (not if) PayPal gives-out/sells your
e-mail address. That happened to me once, and it took a while to correct
that. Also why I don't use paypal any more.

Hi,

This is a unique problem? How about when the IRS sells your address, as they did some 750,000 of us a couple of years back? When challenged, they claimed they "had to--FOIA request." Bull... oney. Can I refuse to use the IRS now? I'm sure it would teach them a lesson!

Rick C

 

[exavid]

its truly amazing how people will troll a thread and change to total intent of a message.

the guy is giving a warning about a scam, and people give us their reasons for not using ebay or paypal.

is it that difficult to stay ON POINT, or is it just an attempt to increase post count?

Cool it, everybody - the internet police have arrived...…….. :roll:


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A lot of members have been certified senior citizens for some goodly length of time. Give us some slack because many of us tend to digress. Kinda like going out in the garage and not remembering why you went there..... which I just did.