Paypal and Ebay Spoofs

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Posted By: Jay

I know we have had threads about this but it can't be stressed enough. I just got a Paypal spoof that looked absolutely perfect. The byline was from service@paypal.com, and the border in the letter was the same as Paypal.

As far as I can tell the best way to check for a spoof is to look at the salutation. If it has your real name there than it is real, but if it says Dear Valued Customer it is not.

Also, I always feel more comfortable deleting the email, than manually checking my accounts.

Regards to all,

Jay Kaplan

LOOKING FOR T206'S!

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Posted By: barrysloate

Every few days I get a message that appears to be from paypal telling me that a third party has been trying to access my account. They request I click on a link and forward them some information. I don't even pay attention to them anymore but they are very annoying.

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Posted By: fkw

The easiest way is to make sure the address that asks for the log-in info has a "https" (with an "s"), as in secure.

The scam spoof emails have all kinds of obviously unrelated unsecure addresses.
Like Barry said, I also get about one every couple day.

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Posted By: Dave

I notice that I get the same types of messages after I have bid on and won high dollar items on Ebay. I always report them, and Paypal sasy they will investigate. Usually within a few days I get an email basically telling me that it was a fraudulent email and thanks for reporting it.

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Posted By: Adam J. Baxter

Within the last three weeks or so I've been getting upwards of 3 to 5 spoof emails a day supposedly from either Paypal or Ebay. They run the gamit from "Your account is suspended to Watched item relisted". The ones that have been caused me some concern as of late are the "watched items relisted ones" because they are now listing pre-war cards. They used to be for stuff I wouldn't buy if some one put a gun to my head (Hummel statues for example). Someone is obviously keeping a close eye on my ebay bidding activity.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The key is to never follow the links in the emails. Instead go to your web browser, type in eBay.com or PayPal.com, sign and see what's up. If there really is a problem, they will let you know there. If there is no problem, you'll see no problem.

My other test is at the site is to type in the wrong password and see how they react. If it's the real site, the'll say to the effect, "Your pass word or user name is incorrect. Please try again." A spoof site will say to the effect, "Thanks for typing in your password," because they don't know your password. The only way a site can know the password you typed in is incorrect is when they know the correct password. PayPal knows your password, while a scam site does not if you haven't told them.

Heck, even if you're 99% sure you're at the correct PayPal site, it never hurts to start by typing in the wrong password.

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Posted By: Patrick McMenemy

Those emails are actually from ebay.

They aren't items that are in your actual watchlist, but are items being sold by a seller of one of the items in your watch list.

Patrick

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

I've had an eBay account linked to my personal e-mail address for more than five years, so the fraudulent e-mails arrive quite frequently. Just last week I created an e-mail account for my work and linked the new account to my work e-mail address. Within 24 hours of listing an item, I started receiving fake e-mails disguised as being from PayPal, eBay, etc. I never received these specific e-mails at work before creating an account and listing an item. It certainly could have been a coincidence, but my conclusion is that no matter how eBay tries to spin it, the company does a poor job protecting its users' e-mail addresses -- even if it does hide bidders' identities on the more expensive items.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

About all you can do is forward them to:

spoof@ebay.com
spoof@paypal.com

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Posted By: Cobby33

Just tried to withdraw money from my Paypal account. Received the following message:

"Before you can Withdraw Money, you must complete the registration process by confirming your primary email address. If you need your email confirmation number resent, click on the new confirmation number link at the bottom on this page."

Of course, there was no link at the bottom. Beautiful. Can't figure out whether eBay/Paypal have been taken over my a mob of imbeciles, or whether, well, I can't think of another explanation.