[General Topics] Robson:
I have a Paypal account and I buy a lot of stuff from eBay. My account is connected to my Yahoo email; it used to be with my office email but sometimes our firewall treats Paypal emails as spam.

Anyway, I checked my Yahoo account yesterday and there was a notice that I sent payment of 395.85USD to someone for buying an Omega Constellation Watch (must've been a fake watch that one :D ). Scrolling down the message there was an area which asked if this transaction is not authorized; I should click on the Problem Resolution Center. I clicked on it and the website appeared which definitely looked like Paypal. It asked me to log in; which I did. The next step was that it asked for my First Name, Last Name, Credit Card info, etc. This actually struck me as being strange. Since I had a Paypal account, logging in automatically tells the website who I am and what my personal details are.

What I did was immediately logged out. I then logged in again and changed my password and secret question (when you forget your password this one prompts you). Logged out again, then logged in and checked my history or activity. It showed that there was no purchase done on the said date (when I supposedly bought a watch). I forwarded the suspect email to: 'spoof@paypal.com' for them to clarify and investigate for me. I also checked with my credit card company and thankfully they said that there was no activity related to the case I described.

This morning I checked my Yahoo email and Paypal responded saying that they have verified the email to be a fake. The first point is that Paypal will never address you as "Dear Member or Dear Paypal Member". The second point is that there was a difference in the URL used by the fraud link. For those of you who use Paypal; please take some time off and read a little more on this. There's a "Contact Us" section, from there you can type "Fraud" in the search field. A topic saying "How do I differentiate between a fake and authentic email from Paypal" (or something like that).

Lastly, Paypal said that if I did fill out the information requested by the fraud URL; chances are my credit card info would have been obtained and who knows what can happen. I'm sending you a copy of the email I received. PLEASE TREAT THIS AS REFERENCE ONLY. DO NOT COPY OR CLICK ON ANY LINKS.

Cheers

Rob

------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

PayPal <service@paypal.com>" <administrator@paypal.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert

Subject:

Your payment has been sent to sales@omegamove.com

Date:

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 20:20:01 -0700

Dear PayPal Member,

This email confirms that you have paid OMEGAMOVE (sales@omegamove.com) $395.85 USD using PayPal.

This credit card transaction will appear on your bill as "PAYPAL OMEGAMOVE".

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PayPal Shopping Cart Contents

Item Name:

Omega Constellation Men Watch - mint

Quantity:

1

Total:

$380.85 USD

Cart Subtotal:

$380.85 USD

Sales Tax:

$15.00 USD

Cart Total:

$395.85 USD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shipping Information

Shipping Info:

James Dickinson

184 Hadley Dr.

Chicago, IL 60614

United States

Address Status:

Unconfirmed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you haven't authorized this charge, click the link below to cancel the payment and get a full refund.

Dispute Transaction

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for using PayPal!

The PayPal Team