OT: Paypal scam ongoing...

From: Bill Paul <kf6bbl_at_cox.net>
Date: Wed Sep 11 2002 - 23:58:38 EDT

I just came this close (imagine my fingers really close) to getting scammed
by someone pretending to be Paypal.
I just got an email that went something like this:

>URGENT: PayPal System Problems
>Dear PayPal User,
>Today we had some trouble with one of our computer systems. While the
>trouble appears to be minor, we are not taking any chances. We decided to
>take the troubled system offline and replace it with a new system.
>Unfortunately this caused us to lose some member data. Please follow the
>link below and log into your account to make sure your information is not
>affected. Account balances have not been affected.

It goes on, and provides a URL inside the message that appears to take you
to https://www.paypal.com, but in fact it takes you to
http://www.paypalsys.com where you are asked to provide you login,
password, CC info, SS#, etc. It was pretty convincing and even I, the most
skeptical person in the world, was fooled for a couple minutes.
They did get my password, but once I recognized it as a scam, I changed my
Paypal password right away.
After I've looked into the scam and reported it, it looks like a very well
executed scam and they have done alot of work to pull it off. I hope they
get caught.

Anyhow, hopefully not too many are getting this scam message, and were
quicker than I tonight.
-Bill

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
** To UNSUBSCRIBE from vectorlist, send a message with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the
** message body to vectorlist-request@synthcom.com. Please direct other
** questions, comments, or problems to vectorlist-owner@synthcom.com.
Received on Wed Sep 11 21:27:57 2002

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Fri Aug 01 2003 - 00:34:08 EDT