Paypal con

[Karl]

I've just received an e-mail from "Paypal", telling me that i've just sent a payment to somebody for £44.99, which I hadn't sent. Below is the text of the e-mail.

Hello PayPal Client,

You sent a payment of 44.99 GBP to purplelavenderroom ([email protected])

It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
The seller asked to provide more information about this payment.
If you haven't authorized this charge, you can cancel your payment and get a full refund here:
https://billing.paypal.co.uk/cancel_payment/

Transaction Date: 15 Feb 2011
Transaction Amount: -44.99 GBP
Invoice ID: purplelav4093249
Your Transaction ID: 3WC746306P102453F
Case Number: PP-001-319-593-221

Yours sincerely,

I checked my Paypal account (via logging onto Paypal in a separate window) and nothing shows. However, hover over the link (which i've coloured in above) takes you to "lincolncrowne.com", whatever that is.

No doubt if I followed the link I would be asked to log in to my paypal account to cancel this "payment", thereby exposing my account to fraudsters.

Interestingly, although the e-mail says it is from Paypal, my hotmail warnings flagged up that it was in fact from [email protected].

Cheers

Karl

 

[knappers]

That's why you must ALWAYS look to see where the link points to before you click on it in emails.
Almost always, if the email is about banks or paypal, it's dodgy.
You also did right to log and check your paypal account directly first.

Si.

 

[Scouse]

I wonder if it is Hotmail; I used to get hundreds of similar emails from paypal, National Lottery etc, and loads of those in which I have been chosen by a former employee of a Central African bank who has $500,000,000 which he needs to pay into my account!

Since moving to Gmail, I get none of these; I wondered if Hotmail just doesn't have the spam filters of google.

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Just never click on links in emails, always open a new windows and go to the site manually.

 

[cambournepete]

Since moving to Gmail, I get none of these; I wondered if Hotmail just doesn't have the spam filters of google.

I agree gmail is pretty good with spam, but I do occasionally get spam in my spam folder.

 

[CHJ]

Since moving to Gmail, I get none of these; -

Don't get to comfy with gmail, it's account sign-up and redirecting can be automated very easily.

For a month prior to the recent sight updates and some serious changing of UKW sign on system by Charlie this site (many other sites likewise) was receiving bogus gmail e-mail account sign-ups and spam web site and signature links linked to russian, east european, philippine and just about every other world wide ISP in their hundreds, per day if it is so easy for the bot spamming community to generate-receive-redirect gmail accounts there is a serious security risk somewhere.

 

[Dibs-h]

I've just received an e-mail from "Paypal", telling me that i've just sent a payment to somebody for £44.99, which I hadn't sent. Below is the text of the e-mail.

Hello PayPal Client,

You sent a payment of 44.99 GBP to purplelavenderroom ([email protected])

It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
The seller asked to provide more information about this payment.
If you haven't authorized this charge, you can cancel your payment and get a full refund here:
https://billing.paypal.co.uk/cancel_payment/

Transaction Date: 15 Feb 2011
Transaction Amount: -44.99 GBP
Invoice ID: purplelav4093249
Your Transaction ID: 3WC746306P102453F
Case Number: PP-001-319-593-221

Yours sincerely,

I checked my Paypal account (via logging onto Paypal in a separate window) and nothing shows. However, hover over the link (which i've coloured in above) takes you to "lincolncrowne.com", whatever that is.

No doubt if I followed the link I would be asked to log in to my paypal account to cancel this "payment", thereby exposing my account to fraudsters.

Interestingly, although the e-mail says it is from Paypal, my hotmail warnings flagged up that it was in fact from [email protected].

Cheers

Karl

Karl - It's very common common, spoofing email headers, masquerading, etc. As has been suggested always open up a another window and go to the site manually.

Another method is looking at the email headers - in Outlook it's View - Options and the headers are visible in a box labelled "Internet Headers". SMTP is a relatively simple protocol so it can easily be gleaned from the HELO commands whether the sending host is who it says it is, etc. by checking the IP, etc. But that's techo-babble for the majority and even I usually bin these sorts of emails & I never click on a link in an email, if it remotely wants personal details.

Dibs

 

[Mike Wingate]

I bought one of those. I copied and pasted the email to Paypal's fraud dept.

 

[Carlow52]

http://www.movements.org/how-to/c/security/ has some interesting stuff.

I am not promoting the site or its values, it featured on a Beeb program the other night

 

[Jensmith]

I think the real clue here is that it says "Hello Paypal Client".

Paypal will NEVER do this and say so on their website and in e-mails. Ebay are the same. They always put your full name eg "Hello John Doe" in the e-mail.

Glad you were suspicious and checked.

 

[slinky1]

Ive just had an email today saying the same thing! Do not respond to this email it is a scam!!!!!