h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just got a rather unpleasant email purporting to be from Pay Pal, informing me that someone has been fraudulently using a paypal account on my behalf. I am not completely daft, it's a scam; the thing has about a dozen grammatical errors, so no way am i clicking on anything, just deleting it.

But would like to know if others have been plagued with this one & if there's any way of stopping the wretched things?

(I use Mozilla, so it's not an Internet Explorer nasty)

I'm NOT a; so please keep it simple!! Plus i live in France & stuff involving both computersqueak & French is mind bogglingly difficult!



zdt

Sorry.. I have no idea what PayPal could even be

I always put unknown emails into the junk file.. and let hubby sort them out..

I've not had that particular one before, but my junk e-mail folder often gets stuff from 'Pay Pal' (you need to update your account, give us you credit card details; your order is on its way, please give us your credit card details; and so on).

PayPal is a legit company, I think, though I don't use them - they handle credit card transactions for third parties. Be interested to know what they're doing about it (since so many scamsters seem so very keen on them).

The first one I got really worried me. But I got used to them after a while and just deleted them.

At home, I'm still contentedly using the last version of Netscape. Which is based on Mozilla. That version has a Junk Manager that can be enabled withing the Preferences. Once it has been, an extra column appears in your "Inbox" where you can define anything as Junk, and further stuff from there are simply eliminated before you even see them. (To a Junk-bin that you can also set to 'preserve' for a time, or be immediate)

Aside from that, there is little to do to prevent clutter like that from finding you. Sorry.

This is just spam mail. You're lucky if you only get a few examples of this - my own account is now starting to get hit by 5 or 6 a day, and the email account I use for public purposes (e.g. here on H2G2) gets about 30 spam mails a day.

To be honest, there is very little you can or should do apart from complain to your own ISP (service provider, like Wannadoo in France). Never reply directly to spammers, most of the emails they send are designed just for that purpose: to get a reaction, so that they can send even more spam to you. The theory behind spam is that if they send enough junk mail out, then the law of statistics dictates than some people will be foolish enough to be conned into giving them their credit card details. That might be just .01% of the population, but when you are sending out 5 million spam mails a day, .01% equates to 500 sales opportunities in just one day.

Spamming is a criminal venture, so their only concern is not getting caught. They use fraudulent business accounts, use other people's credit cards to buy stuff illegally, and often use software to hijack other people's PC's to enable them to cover their tracks. You are better off letting the big-guys deals with these people.

In the mean-time do what I do. Delete them immediately without reading it. The spelling errors and the use of substituted characters ie. D011@R$ are usually dead giveaways.

for all the advice. It seems bizarre that in scams on this scale they don't sort out the spelling errors; also you would think the genuine PayPal would be down on them like a ton of bricks!

I am wondering if it's from the same lot who are wearily continuing with the Nigerian bank scam? I thought they had been tracked down ages back.



zdt

Te he! And they are sexist too! just got one entitled "Goood gog, let's work together for good"; starts off "dear Sir"!!!!!

zdt*not a Sir, occasionally a bit of a madam*

You can bet that Pay Pal are hopping mad.

The problem with spam is that the law has taken some time to catch up. The direct marketing association in America faught to the teeth to prevent the legislators bringing in laws to outlaw spam, because they felt they would be affected by this too. Also you have spammers operating out of Russia, Europe, China, and South East Asia, with no laws to close them down.

That said, Microsoft scored a huge win last week when they took one of the most notorious American spammers to court and won. He now owes them 7 million dollars, although many would prefer (including me) that these people should be thrown in prison.

I don't think this is spam, this sounds like phishing - trying to get personal information (such as bank account numbers, passwords etc) out of someone for financial gain. If you go to the PayPal website there might be a link somewhere to report it. I know eBay has a system for reporting phishing attempts.

It shouldn't need to be said, but obviously it does because the people who do this are still managing to fool some people:

NEVER, EVER give out passwords, credit card numbers or account numbers if you get an email asking for them. Legit companies don't ask for them. Even if you find a link in the email which points to a very convincing-looking website for your bank/PayPal/eBay/Amazon etc, it isn't - it's a (sometimes) cleverly disguised spoof. Sometimes it isn't so cleverly disguised - hovering your mouse over the link might show up a ridiculously impossible url.

Yes, it is phishing but, because they probably do this to zillions of people, it is spam as well. Mmmm , phish flavoured spam...

Some information from Pay Pal themselves.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/general/IdentityProtection-outside

Oops. URL doesn't work. BOLD HooToo! No phish for YOU tonight.

Trying again...

http://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/general/IdentityProtection-outside

You could see if this is listed on snopes. If not then you could send a copy of the email to snopes so they can alert other folk.

If I ever get this type of e-mail I report it to the legitimate website and then send a reply to the e-mail that contains lots of bad words (I know they probably don't get through to anyone, but it makes me feel better).

Replying is not advised in any circumstances. It's a total waste of your time, and a sure-fire recipe for getting even more junk email, and having your own email shared amongst more of this crowd. They don't care what you say, but they do value an email account that is 'live' and useable.

Like I said, it makes me feel better... and I haven't noticed any increase in the amount of spam I get (it's actually gone down lately). And while I apprciate your taking time to explain the risks to me I am already well aware of them (and have to admit that I find it a little patronising when people assume I don't).

I'm not overly worried about getting spam as it all goes to a single online account which I clear out every day. I only use my main e-mail address for things which I trust.

Yeah, spam is usually quickly identifiable isn't it? If it isn't the bad spelling it's usually the over-familiarity of the subject line.

Really looking forward to our date!
I'm okay for the cinema on friday!
LOOK AT THIS THIS IS SO FUNNY!

Um no.

Re patronising: I was making a comment which wasn't necessarily directed at you. It's my view that you don't reply to spam mails - I can't see how this can be construed as patronising. It's just my view. If I knew in advance that you had an exemplary record regarding dealing with spam, then, um, maybe. But that was not the case here.

Sorry, it's just that what with it appearing immediately after my post about how I deal with spam it did seem to be specifically pointed my way.

A while ago, I got a few emails, supposedly, from Paypal. But they looked suspicious, so I got in touch with Paypal and they confirmed that they were a scam and to forward the emails on to them.