Pay pal attempted scams

dunnyrail said:
In the last few days I have had two attempted scams on my PP Account. Not actual attack with money taken I hasten to add, but mails showing purchases that look like the real thing and clearly are not. Nor have they been made by me. These things attempt to get you to sign in with your password and then scam your Bank or Credit Card details. I have just got so sick of this and worry that somehow someone may just get in that I have personally decided to cease all my dealings with PP. To that end I have deleted my Bank Details and my CC was out of date anyway. Shame really as I liked the concept of PP, but it is for me just getting too risky.

I am NOT advising any of you to do this, heaven forbid I create a litageous situation for the Forum by posting such suggestion. Just telling you what I have done.

So it is good by from me and goodby from me PP.

I can of course still purchase from Ebay by quoting a CC when I buy.
JonD
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Every time I made a PayPal transaction I would get an email asking the same thing.
I forward it unopened to spoof@paypal.com and usually get a reply that it is phishing operation.
With the last 2 transactions the email did not appear so maybe Paypal has struck back or the scammers just move continent.
 
Gavin Sowry said:
I sometimes use the 'silent' trick......... quietly place the receiver on the bench, and walk away. Come back 5 mins later, and ask if they are still there.....

Most of them have been very rude, having hung up on me.

I can also do a pretty fair imitation of Peter Sellers' subcontinental accent.... calls from Bombay can be interesting, they can not understand the words (both of them) that I am saying to them.
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A lady who I work with has an autistic son and she just hand the phone to him and says "tell the person on the phone all about your day".
Evidently she does not get any more telemarketers calling.
Quote her "Cameron's train of thought has no caboose" end Quote
 
I dont have any online accounts- paypal, amazon, ebay, banking ect but still get the fraud/phishing emails. Most of these companies including HMRC have dedicated email addresses, (easily found on the net) to which these dubious emalls can be forwarded, as a attachment, for investigation.- i certainly do, and i advise other receivers to do the same.

The only ones that i take a absolute delight in answering, are the so-called 'Nigerian' letters,- ' i am related to the prime minister and have 'X' amount that i want to get out of the country' type - i really love winding up the senders !
 
p.williams said:
I dont have any online accounts- paypal, amazon, ebay, banking ect but still get the fraud/phishing emails. Most of these companies including HMRC have dedicated email addresses, (easily found on the net) to which these dubious emalls can be forwarded, as a attachment, for investigation.- i certainly do, and i advise other receivers to do the same.

The only ones that i take a absolute delight in answering, are the so-called 'Nigerian' letters,- ' i am related to the prime minister and have 'X' amount that i want to get out of the country' type - i really love winding up the senders !
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The only problem with that, is that it proves the email address they have is an active address.. Lists of 'live' addresses are worth more on the open market..
 
PhilP said:
The only problem with that, is that it proves the email address they have is an active address.. Lists of 'live' addresses are worth more on the open market..
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Agreed. Just leave unopened and delete. Answering even one of them is probably why you get the others - your email address has been proven to be active and has been circulated around.
 
PhilP said:
The only problem with that, is that it proves the email address they have is an active address.. Lists of 'live' addresses are worth more on the open market..
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I use a program called "Mail Washer". I open it first, mark for deletion anything that looks suspect then use the "process mail" function to download my emails.
The program has a learn function so that if I mark an address it will highlight and automatically mark it for deletion anytime something comes from that address. The emails are never downloaded from my ISP server onto my computer but are deleted at the server so my address shows as not alive. That combined with a good anti virus has so far kept me virus free touch wood.
 
I had a PayPal "receipt" yesterday in my Spam Box. Not everything that goes in there is spam so I look at the 'Raw Message' (not that I understand HTML!). The amount, was similar to something I purchased for SWMBO over three weeks ago.

I opened up a new page and checked my PP account, then checked the bank - all OK. So I forwarded the email to PP and deleted the offending missive.

It purported to come from the same account handling company that took my PP money back in early March - so realistic.

And after all that I set Avast (and the IOBit Malaware) off scanning my PC. All clear!

There ought to be someway of 'nuking' these pests!
 
trammayo said:
I had a PayPal "receipt" yesterday in my Spam Box. Not everything that goes in there is spam so I look at the 'Raw Message' (not that I understand HTML!). The amount, was similar to something I purchased for SWMBO over three weeks ago.

I opened up a new page and checked my PP account, then checked the bank - all OK. So I forwarded the email to PP and deleted the offending missive.

It purported to come from the same account handling company that took my PP money back in early March - so realistic.

And after all that I set Avast (and the IOBit Malaware) off scanning my PC. All clear!

There ought to be someway of 'nuking' these pests!
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Thus far the only thing that has worked for certain with me was to delete all my Valid Accounts in PP. makes you wonder how secure it really is if that is all that you need to do. Course it means I cannot now use PP to buy anything. A problem that I will resolve if I do need to use PP again. Was fun while it lasted.
JonD
 
dunnyrail said:
Thus far the only thing that has worked for certain with me was to delete all my Valid Accounts in PP. makes you wonder how secure it really is if that is all that you need to do. Course it means I cannot now use PP to buy anything. A problem that I will resolve if I do need to use PP again. Was fun while it lasted.
JonD
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Ironically, PayPal is one of the better online transactional sites - the problem is usually message interception rather than database hacking :emo::emo:

My antivirus programme now offers me an encrypted service for internet banking - at no extra cost :shake::shake:
 
Agreed. Deleting your stuff in PP is an unnecessary over-reaction. PP hasn't been hacked, your email details have been harvested by some other means. I see a lot of speculative spam emails for accounts I know damn well I've never created.

The age-old advice applies - don't follow any links in these emails, always go to the site directly via your known good/correct link and check that way.
 
trammayo said:
I had a PayPal "receipt" yesterday in my Spam Box. Not everything that goes in there is spam so I look at the 'Raw Message' (not that I understand HTML!). The amount, was similar to something I purchased for SWMBO over three weeks ago.

I opened up a new page and checked my PP account, then checked the bank - all OK. So I forwarded the email to PP and deleted the offending missive.

It purported to come from the same account handling company that took my PP money back in early March - so realistic.

And after all that I set Avast (and the IOBit Malaware) off scanning my PC. All clear!

There ought to be someway of 'nuking' these pests!
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Sadly, the only way to beat them is to act intelligently.

I got caught by a fake email allegedly from Costa Coffee offering me vouchers - I should have realised that they offer was way too excessive. I was in the middle of applying for the vouchers, when I woke up to the fact that they were asking for too much information, so I aborted the application. However, I was subsequently bombarded with spam because one f the first bits of info was my email address, and I wrote to Cost to complain. It was only when I received their reply that I found it was a scam, and that they too were looking for the culprits (because ultimately it looks bad on them).

Checking for the sender's actual email address is the soundest advice. there's been some newspaper articles recently, highlighting such things as a company accountant complying with his CEO's email directive to pay a certain supplier urgently - the boss was on holiday, and the scammers had spent some months targeting the firm, and new that the CEO was on holiday in Greece, thus being able mention that in the spoof email to add further credibility :nod::nod:
 
Rhinochugger said:
Ironically, PayPal is one of the better online transactional sites - the problem is usually message interception rather than database hacking :emo::emo:

My antivirus programme now offers me an encrypted service for internet banking - at no extra cost :shake::shake:
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All of that and some of the other comments may well be correct. But I do not other than forward the attempted scam to PP for them to investigate do anything with the scam attmempts, but as I said since I have deleted all my Payment Methods I have had no more attempts. Very strange me thinks. The other thing I am quite vigilant about is to kill my connection to the net if I am not using my PC or iPad. Thus I never have an open WiFi link to the net except for perhaps an hour or so, perhaps a bit longer if watching a movie on YouTube. Perhaps this helps as well.
JonD
 
You must have dodgy neighbours intercepting and decrypting your WiFi then, JonD???
 
dunnyrail said:
All of that and some of the other comments may well be correct. But I do not other than forward the attempted scam to PP for them to investigate do anything with the scam attmempts, but as I said since I have deleted all my Payment Methods I have had no more attempts. Very strange me thinks. The other thing I am quite vigilant about is to kill my connection to the net if I am not using my PC or iPad. Thus I never have an open WiFi link to the net except for perhaps an hour or so, perhaps a bit longer if watching a movie on YouTube. Perhaps this helps as well.
JonD
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If you have decent anitvirus, then it's unlikely that an open domestic computer will be hacked.

Much of this is done through unsecured email, but also spoof emails that harness 'bots' - doesn't do the 'bot any real harm except his that email address and contacts to send further spoof emails without any time and effort. Russia was the main source of this type of activity.

Working with a local authority, where data protection is an issue, any email that contains a resident's personal data has to go through encrypted email rather than Microsoft Outlook.

So the rools are:

Query the sender's address for an unusual email
If an offer is too good to be true it most probably is
If you have to email bank details to friends or family, don't send all of your details in a single email - spread it over two or three (interception is pretty random
Don't respond to your banker's emails, unless they are asking you to simply login to your account in the usual way.
Never tell anyone you PIN nos
If you're with Santander, use Raporteer for encryption, otherwies get ESET antivirus which gives you free banking encryption

I'm afraid it's now normal - as normal, as locking your car or your front door and, (for insurance purposes, your windows)
 
and one has to ask - why would one want a discount voucher for a cardboard bucket of crap coffee?:);)
 
stockers said:
and one has to ask - why would one want a discount voucher for a cardboard bucket of crap coffee?:);)
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I can explain - you can't get much else in London - I mean all of the brands produce the same crap, and you also have to pay through the nose for the rubbish - so any free coffee is the best coffee :nod::nod:
 
Ralphmp said:
Our recent Neighbourhood Watch e-Newsletter ran a special piece on scams. The following link to the West Herts Police web site - www.herts.police.uk/scamacademy - has 3 short videos on common current scams, and the site also has a link for the Metropolitan Police's "Little Book of Big Scams" which makes interesting reading, regardless of whether one is a novice or an expert in dealing with these.

(NB - I purposely did not embed a direct link to the police website)
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Very clear and concise information in those videos!
 
Despite all that I've said here, I just fell foul of the same Paypal spoof that, it seems, hit Jon (Dunnyrail).

I fell for it because I am in the process of having to change my email address (my old freeserve address will be taken off air in May) and because some other organisations where I have changed the email address are frustratingly still using the old email address.

So, guess what I did, I logged in to the spoof email with my real Paypal details :banghead::banghead:

I then realised it was a spoof - largely because of its incorrect grammar, quickly closed it and even more quickly changed my Paypal password - which is a shame, because it was unique and unforgettable, and the new one will be less so.............but my account should remain secure.

So back to Dunnyrail's original post - it is not that your Paypal account has been hacked, but that there is a very, very realistic looking spoof doing the rounds which, if you fall for it, will give potential hackers your login and password, and access to your account, to buy huge amounts of goodies.
 
I guess I am pretty fortunate in that I have all that I need for my G Scale and 00 lines so do not need to use Ebay or PP at the moment. However if I get a Roundhouse Garrett ( still thinking this one through) I will need to use PP to buy a SloMo or two for it. PP being the only realistic way to pay for these from Oz. What I will do is quickly set up a Payment Method do the biz then delete my Payment Method as soon as I know the guy has his money. Being very careful to not get cought by any scams along the way.
JonD
 
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