Beware, beware!!! Paypal Phishing attempt!
By Lindalinda
@Lindalinda (4111)
Canada
June 30, 2009 7:59am CST
I would like to share this with you. I received a legitimate looking e-mail supposedly from Paypal, telling me that a transaction of $ 20 US had been initiated on my account. Since it was from a foreign place they needed to confirm. If I did not authorize this transaction there was a link to click through to cancel this. I did this and a window that looked exactly like the Paypal Site came up instructing me to enter my e-mail and paypal password. I did this then another window came up asking me all kinds of questions such as to confirm my credit card number and my pin number and bank account. I became suspcious and realized that the site did not say https. I immediately signed off without giving more details and signed on with paypal and changed my password. I also alerted Paypal and received a reply stating that this was indeed a phishing attempt. Please do not give out information without checking the Paypal site starts with https.
3 people like this
14 responses
@MsTickle (25180)
• Australia
5 Jul 09
Good on you for spotting the falseness of the site.
The other thing to remember is that any site that is secure and keeping your info secure will never ever, ever ask for you password or bank details or pin numbers because they already know what they are. They don't need you to confirm your private details because you did that when you first signed with them.
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
6 Jul 09
Yes, you make a good point. The infuriating thing is that these fraudsters play on your emotional reaction namely" what? I did not initiate a transaction" the result of this is that you let down the guard. It is sad that people steep so low.
1 person likes this
@GemmaR (8517)
•
1 Jul 09
My goodness, you have to be so, so careful with things like this! There are so many emails which will attempt to take your money, and alot of these are really clever and look genuine!
Worse than this is the fact that a lot of people now have their paypal accounts linked with their bank accounts, meaning that if someone has the password to your paypal account, they can basically have all of the money you've ever worked for.
You have to guard your details with your life, and never ever ever ever ever give them to anyone! Paypal will NEVER ask you to confirm any details, as they already know them!
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Yes you are so right. It is all so logical ut at the first moment I got so exited thinking who would have authorized a transaction. I immediately relaized that I made a mistake and changed my password in Paypal. Hopefully that will avoid damage. Also I have not linked my bank account to paypal. If I ever did I would open a different bank account with a very small balance.
@imgrandma12 (677)
• United States
1 Jul 09
wow nothing is safe any more what can we do to pervent this from happening
@ronaldinu (12422)
• Malta
7 Mar 10
Unfortunately such phishing attempts are not uncommon on the internet.
I am glad that you realised immediately that the site was not legitimate
and signed off immediately. I think that your quick thinking saved you
from your account being hacked. I am glad that you are sharing this experience
to serve as an eye opener for others.
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
7 Mar 10
Hi Ronald,
I was lucky that time. You know, the trouble is that one wants to rectify a situation immediately and thus falls into traps that evil people set for us trusting people. As you said I was fortunate to realize at the last moment that something was not right.
@imgrandma12 (677)
• United States
1 Jul 09
wow you can not trust any one any more thanks for the info have a wonderful day
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Yes you are right we cannot trust these e-mails. Also please read what other mylotters have said in response. It is very good advice.
@imgrandma12 (677)
• United States
1 Jul 09
okay I will read what others wrote gee it makes me also afraid to do on line banking afraid to have any thing personal on my computer at all.
@earnnings (1325)
• India
1 Jul 09
OMG its a horrible thing. I think we should immediate transfer the amounts from the account. Till now i didn't get any such mails but i need to be more careful. I have only small amount in my account but what if the members have more than 1000$..Oops
I cannot imagine such things buddy. Anyways everyone must be very careful in submitting the information online.
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Well, just be careful and don't reply to any fraudulent e-mails. Read what people have said to me. It is all good advice. I will remember that Paypal would not send me such an e-mail.
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Yes, be careful. Also read what people who responded to said. It was good advice all around.
@winterose (39887)
• Canada
30 Jun 09
now that I am thinking about it, change that password immediately your account has now been compromised, I would call paypal from the paypal site and explain what happened.
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
I did change my password a minute after I realized I made a booboo. I also reported the site to Paypal.
@winterose (39887)
• Canada
30 Jun 09
You should never have answered it in the first place,
paypal warns about these fraudulent emails,
paypal does not need to ask you for that information they have it,
paypal will never send you and email without addressing you by name, if you get a dear paypal user or something like that it is not from them.
it is on their website about fraud and what to do about it and they also want to you to send the fraudulent email to them, so they can try to find out who is doing it and put a stop to it.
A real paypal email would have your name and if there is some kind of problem they would ask you to call them, and you would go to the site and find their real phone number
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Yes, you are so right. Those clever fraudsters got me all exited by saying someone had authorized a transaction. I was not thinking straight.
@coolcoder (2018)
• United States
1 Jul 09
Thanks for the heads-up, Linda. I'll definitely be on the lookout for phishing attempts and will also alert PayPal if one happens to come my way.
Oh, and another little tip to check to see if it's a phishing attempt--look carefully to see if there are any misspellings in words that should not be misspelled. That should send a red flag up right there. :)
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Thanks, you make an excellent point. In this case the clever fraudsters must have employed a crook whose native language was English.
@desteny114 (886)
• United States
1 Jul 09
Thank you for the heads up I'm always consurn when I give out my personal information. I don't trust many things you can say especialy when they are trying to get my personal information. I have been getting an Email from "msn" it tells me that I asked to change my password and I have not asked for that change. It's also giving me the option to do the change or ot cancel the change but I have not done a thing about it I just ignor it. I just hope that it would just stop sending me that message because I do not want to change my password.
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Good for you. Just ignore those fraudulent e-mails. Better still report them to MSN
@roseyroser (1059)
• United States
1 Jul 09
I would only initiate a transaction if I knew I was getting paid or will be paying someone who is legit. There are no legit sites that ask for personal information after registering with them.
If you entered your credit card number I would cancel it and get a new one. If you gave your bank account number, then get a new bank account. If you are not sure that those number were given to the phishers, you may want to get a new bank account and credit card number anyway. It's better to be safe than sorry.
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Thanks for an excellent point. I did not go any further than the first link, but with that I did compromise my Paypas password. I changed it immediately and also informed Paypal. Luckily my account is not linked to a bank account.
@ace828 (73)
• United States
1 Jul 09
Good thing you eventually realized what was happening. Think about how bad it would have been if you gave them your credit card information and all that other stuff. You definitely would have been beating yourself up if you had given your information. Remember that Paypal isn't going to ask for your password or any kind of infomation like social security or credit card information. Thanks for the warning though!
@Lindalinda (4111)
• Canada
1 Jul 09
Yes, as soon as I opened the second window I realized something was wrong. You are right, I should have known that Paypal would not ask me this information in an e-mail. I did change my password immediately and reported the incident to Paypal.
