PayPal fraud e-mails

these must be a nightmare for the big PP

[Mr Bo Jangles]

How many of you have seen these PayPal fraud e-mails?
I've been sent about six now - there are two different types I've seen, and both are devastaingly authentic looking. These must be causing PP some enormous worry because the % of people who respond to them I would think would be very high.

I was a 'finger hovering' inch away from responding to the first one I got - hey! don't laugh till you've seen one!
I sent both types to PayPal - they've got a special e-mail for you to send them to.

The thing that I find quite intersting though is that, with all the money and power that PP has, it is still taking them some time to snuff this bit of evil nonsense out - yes, I know, Russia, other far away countries etc. - but all the same, if PP can't stop this crap, then there's no hope for us little people drowning in this fu****ing spam is there.

Cheers,

[1milehgh80210]

The % that respond is probably small, but still maybe 10x as much as your average spam message. So quite a large # in total.
Hope they never get me in a weak moment, i.e. (had too many pints)!

[andy_boyd]

I remember getting the first email in, it looked so real! Only after close inspection did I realize the urls were dodgy, as was the layout and the fact that they were asking you to just email your details .... not good.

I'm sure people have been caught out by this, after all it looks like a great deal of time and energy went into the emails. Hopefully PayPal catch the culprits, it can't be very good for their reputation.

[PCInk]

The thing with PayPal is that they don't email you to confirm any details. They use the information screen on the log-in to request you to confirm details or accept their new terms. Users should be aware of this, however, Mr Average Joe Public may respond. There was one that I looked at from 'PayPal' but when I looked at the address closely, it was a country extension (something like paypal.com.cc) and was not easy to spot at first, even for someone who is careful, like me, but for many people they may not spot this 'error'.

I think it must use up a lot of PayPal's resources dealing with the problem of it.

What confuses me, is that these people must use a real PayPal account or real bank details to actually get the money. Or a delivery of goods must have an address either real, or near the real address of one of the culprits.

[PayPalPB]

As you can imagine, it's a pretty difficult problem to address because email is an important means of communcation. One thing that eBay and PayPal are doing that's pretty innovative to address the issue is the eBay Toolbar's new "Account Guard" feature. It basically turns green when you're visiting authentic eBay and PayPal sites.

[pages.ebay.com...]