Cant Keep Quiet!

I received an e-mail with the subject Unauthorized Access Report (KMM9755003V34721L0KM) today.

The contents of the e-mail stated

You have added accessdenied11@aol.com as a new email address for your PayPal account.

If you did not authorize this change or if you need assistance with your account, please contact PayPal customer service at:

http://www.paypalonlineupdate.info/index.htm?row/wf/f=ap_email

Thank you for using PayPal!

The PayPal Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the “Help” link in the header of any page.

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PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD

NEVER give your password to anyone and ONLY log in at https://www.paypal.com/. Protect yourself against fraudulent websites by opening a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing in the PayPal URL every time you log in to your account.

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PayPal Email ID PP007

Looks legit, doesn’t it? It’s not.

A legitimate e-mail from paypal would have had this subject

New email address added to your PayPal account

And would have read

Dear Firstname Lastname,

You have added newe-mail@newe-mail.com as a new email address for your PayPal account.

If you did not authorize this change or if you need assistance with your account, please contact PayPal customer service at:

https://www.paypal.com/us/wf/f=ap_email

Thank you for using PayPal!

The PayPal Team

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and click the Help link located in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

—————————————————————-

PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD

NEVER give your password to anyone, including PayPal employees. Protect yourself against fraudulent websites by opening a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing in the PayPal URL every time you log in to your account.

—————————————————————-

PayPal Email ID PP007

There are very few differences between the two e-mails other than the subject. The real e-mail from PayPal is addressed directly to me while the fake one is not. Another difference is that the fake one has the real url for PayPal in the area under Protect Your Password while the real one does not.

The biggest and most telling difference, though, is the URL given to click if you need assistance. The real one starts with https://www.paypal.com/ while the fake one starts with http://www.paypalonlineupdate.info/.

According to PayPal, legitimate e-mails from PayPal will ask you to click on a link with https://www.paypal.com/ in the beginning. If you’re asked to click on anything else it is a fraudulent request.

So who does http://www.paypalonlineupdate.info/ belong to? According to Web Whois this url is owned by someone claiming to be Peter Jaly from Australia. His e-mail is woolleyc1949@yahoo.com.

I’d send him an e-mail but I don’t want him to have verification of my e-mail address.

There’s a new e-mail virus going around that is fairly recent. It started back in February of 2005. The e-mail looks like this

Subject: You visit illegal websites

Dear Sir/Madam,
Content-Type:

we have logged your IP-address on more than 40 illegal Websites.

Important: Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.

Yours faithfully,
M. John Stellford

++-++ Federal Bureau of Investigation -FBI-
++-++ 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 2130
++-++ Washington, DC 20535
++-++ (202) 324-3000

The attachment does not contain questions that you must answer. It contains the Sober K virus. The Sober K virus is a mass-mailing worm that will send itself to e-mail addresses gathered from compromised computers.

On February 22, 2005, the FBI issued a press release warning about this scam. You can also find out more information about this e-mail at Snopes.com.

In case you’re wondering why I occasionally post about various phishing scams and other e-mail scams, it’s because I can’t stand someone passing something to me that is a hoax and asking me to pass it on. I don’t report anything to anyone without checking it out first. Basically, I’m doing this because I want to warn people about REAL scams that could cost them money or compromise their computers. I’m also hoping it will encourage more people to check things out before forwarding them to everyone in the address book.

When it comes to e-mail, a little suspicion never hurt anyone.

This is the latest phishing scam I’ve received. It’s from someone claiming to be eBay. Here’s what the e-mail said:

Beacouse some of the our coustemers reportad theat you fail the some offers ,we need you to cheack if this is your credit card number xxxx xxxx xxxx 4107 to complete the business . If this is not your credit card number ,please login and restore your account info .To complete eBay registration, you must click the button below.

It’s just full of spelling and grammar errors. Sad, sad, little phish.

I received another phishing e-mail today. Oh, I get them all the time from people pretending to be Paypal, Ebay, and Washington Mutual. The Washington Mutual ones are a laugh because I don’t have a Washington Mutual account.

The one I got today would fall under the category of a Nigerian Scam. This is basically a scam where an e-mail claims to be from a foreign person/bank/business offering you a chance to get millions of dollars if you help them out.

The one I got today was supposedly from the African Development Bank. Supposedly, I would be able to get 20% of 22.3 million dollars if I helped them out. This would amount to about 4.46 million dollars. All I’d have to give them is my bank name and bank account number.

If it’s too good to be true, it’s a fraud. Especially if all you have to do is give up personal information.

I don’t want to take up a lot of space posting a copy of the e-mail I got. Instead, you can click on this link and see the e-mail.

To the morons who keep sending me e-mails telling me that

• My PayPal account has been tagged for security reasons.
• There has been unauthorized activity on my PayPal account.
• A new e-mail address has been added to my PayPal account.
• My Ebay account has been tagged for security reasons.
• There has been unauthorized activity on my Washington Mutual account.

I’m not biting. At all. Ever. First off, I can’t have any unauthorized activity on a non-existant Washington Mutual account. Secondly, I’m one of the most suspicious people I know when it comes to e-mails. If someone sends something to me about a virus, missing child, etc. and asks me to forward it I check it out first. If someone sends me an e-mail telling me any of the above, I contact PayPal or ebay first.

I’ve been sending these stupid things to Paypal (spoof@paypal.com) on practically a daily basis for nearly 2 months now. Every 3 to 4 weeks you idiots try a new tactic. When will you realize that I’m not falling for it?

Sorry to all the non-morons/idiots out there who don’t send such crap to me on a daily basis. I just had to get that off my chest.