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Welcome to my anti-scam page. It is geared towards spotting and understanding
the art of "phishing"..... specifically PayPal phishing. What
phishing refers to is a type of scam where the "phisher" developes
a web page that LOOKS like the web page of some financial institution.
In this case, that would be PayPal. They then proceed to gather private
info from you such as: SS#, Password, credit card#, birth date, address,
etc..... ANYTHING that can either a) help them steal your identity or
b) help them ROB YOU BLIND. They accomplish this by sending you a bogus
email. Usually, it says something like, "Account Deactivation Notice"
or "Unauthorized Account Access". They get you to log in. (now
they have your name and password), and fill out your private info to "confirm"
your "status". (now they have EVERYTHING THEY NEED!!!!!)
The other bad things about this are:
But
never fear! There are ALOT of small things you can do to keep this from
EVER happening to you : )
The institution WILL NOT RECOGNIZE that it is someone other than you.
Why? Because the phisher used all of YOUR information. So nobody from
the institution knew anything different from the normal.
Also, they routinely use legitimate links to connect you back into the
real page (i.e. PayPal) so that you enter and exit these places as you
would normally expect.
But, never fear! There are several things you can do to keep yourself
protected...... and THEY WORK.
1. The first and MOST IMPORTANT thing to know is that, with PayPal, they
will ONLY USE YOUR NAME in their emails. There will be no "Dear Sir"
or "Dear Valued Customer". If you see ANYTHING other than your
name, IT IS BOGUS, period.
2. Hover your mouse over any links in the email. LOOK at the Internet
Explorer status bar (at the very bottom) and SEE if the written link matches
the status bar address. If they match AND it is a valid PayPal address,
that is good. Else, it is a fraud.
3. If you decide to check the link out, do this. LOOK at the address
bar of Internet Explorer. If the address does not start with www.paypal.com,
it is probably a fraud.
4. One of the coolest things I have noticed in fraud detection is that
usually (but not always) you can log in with a completely bogus email
address and password. If you think you are being defrauded and you want
to have a little fun, log in with a bogus account like "uracriminal456@yahoo.com"
with the password of "CopsOnWay99". This will help to fill their
databases with useless info that they will have to weed through in order
to actually get to legitimate personal details.
5. Last but not least, if you think that something could be a fraud,
forward it to scam@paypal.com. You will get a prompt reply AND an answer
as to whether your hunch was right.
Included in the table just beneath this one is a typical case for your
study.
(Read the comments and click on the thumbnail for a larger picture. Make
sure to enlarge them for detail.)
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