i got an email this morning that was a great job of trying to scam, by useing paypal

it looked official and EVEN USED MY CORRECT NAME--not dear apypal user

it said i made a payment for nearly $ 200 for a gold watch

everything was perfect as far as looking like paypal

at the bottom was a link

if you didnt purchase this item, clink the link for a full refund

of course they needed you to sign in to your account

they must have wanted the passwords


i knew right away, since i have a premire businessa ccount, i have the secure linkt hey used to offer, and auto password feature, from years ago

so my sign in will not trigger with the proper paypal code

but i bet a lot of folks will fall for this one

they did a great job


so how did they get the correct name and info

simple

anytime you buy or sell on ebay, ioffer, etc

the other partry in the transaction gets all your info

and with that your paypal name as well

there are scamemrs that buy or sell cheap items to get your info

note cards, coupons, recipes, things that sell for pennies, are fronts for info grabbers


they are not dummies

some very harp

and the one this moring was the best i ever saw


be very careful if you ever sign in to paypal from a link

just go to the paypal.com site and sign in

theres no advantage to useing a link from anyone

even if its actualy paypal

all the info and what ever is on the normal site


one common misconception i hear is

well i only keep like $ 50 in my paypal account, so im safe

WRONG

most accounts are linked directly to a credit card or a bank account

or several

if a scammer has your password

they can clean you dry in minutes

your entire bank account

and all the credit limit you have on all cards

and of course they will run them through their bogus bank account and close it down the minute they ahve all your money

paypal has no way to recover it then

your just flat OUT

This is not new & is not limited to Paypal. Anytime you get an email from a "financial institution" with a link for you to login by typing in your password, don't do it. Instead, go to the main website (by typing in the URL) of the financial institution and log into your account that way. You'll notice the REAL emails you get from banks, credit card companies, etc, tell you what they want to tell you & then say go to their website & login for more info or to pay your bill or whatever. They do not provide a link directly to a login.

Both Internet explorer and Firefox have plugins that will
put in faded text right next to the link exactly where
the link will go (it's called Phishing for the exact scam).

It's one of the biggest scams right now with visa and
mastercard to have someone end up typing in they're
information and then clean out the account.