Here's a good place to check scams, viruses, and also hoaxes and -- as the
site name, Urban Legends Reference Pages suggests -- the facts about
"George Bush/John Kerry/Paul Harvey/Robin Williams/etc. said ..." and other
such urban legends:
http://www.snopes.com/
Here's one of the 16 hits I got when I searched the site for "PayPal":
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/paypal.asp
Snopes is my friend ;-)
Rodney Hoiseth
(in Hayama, Japan)
At 23:41 -0400 04/05/05, G-Books wrote:
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 22:48:43 -0400
Subject: OT - Spoof Warning
From: Stephen Kerney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Buyer Beware (sorry in advance for the length): I received an email
Monday
I thought was from PayPal ("[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
asking
me, by name, to confirm my account info since it'd been "a relatively
long
time since" I'd last logged into PayPal. It listed the last 4 digits of
my
credit card on file with PayPal and included the correct expiration date.
When I clicked on the "Click here" link and entered my email addr and
PayPal
P/W, I decided to update my card info since I'd gotten a new one recently
with a later expiration date and a new Card Verification Number (3 digit
code on back of card).
Once I hit submit, I took a peak at the URL to watch it update and I
noticed
the "s" was missing from the address I incorrectly assumed was secure
(e.g.,
https://...). Before I could hit cancel the form was submitted.
I contacted PayPal that day making inquiry into the post and the security
(or lack thereof) of the web site I'd given my updated credit card info
to.
I including the link I'd gone to. They replied the next day that if the
post started with "Dear First_Name Last_Name" it was definitely from
PayPal.
Since they did not answer my question regarding http:// vs. https:// I
queried them a 2nd time (same response) and then a 3rd time. This time
they
looked at the URL (finally) and said 1) the post I received WAS NOT from
PayPal and that the URL I'd gone to was not a PayPal web site.
I've since canceled that credit card and changed my PayPal password.
I know we hear a lot about ID theft and until this week I always thought
it
happened to the other guy.
May your "before the fact" discernment of spoofed email be better than
mine.
Steve Kerney
P.S. The bogus link was an underlined "Click Here" that pointed to
"<http://www.paypalserv.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr.pl?cmd=_update-card&customer=a
c404341u34u%3ASbvfnvh%3AKvdhv6%3At%3A42t4%3A34%3A4t%3Acbv9vkvdhv6%21vzdbnjmh
k.hvb&encrypt=1&crc=6911>
<http://www.paypalserv.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr.pl?cmd=_update-card&custome
r=ac404341u34u%3ASbvfnvh%3AKvdhv6%3At%3A42t4%3A34%3A4t%3Acbv9vkvdhv6%21vzdbn
jmhk.hvb&encrypt=1&crc=6911>"
They then had a 2nd bogus link masquerading behind what looked like a
good
link. Check this slight of hand trick out: https://www.paypal.com/us/
<http://www.paypalserv.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr.pl?cmd=_confirm-by-number&cn=96
93-6353-5498-3433-1531&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&id=us0401035105>
------------------------------
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