BLATHER REVIEW

Know Your Scam Spam

The fake PayPal maggots are up to a new trick. I just got this email today:

You have added ITmegadiscount@aol.com as a new email address for your PayPal account.

Um... No I didn't.

When I copy/pasted the text of the email into wordpad, the underlined hyperlink automagically displays the URL:

[http://oku-chao.com/image/web/l/primapagina.htm]

If you did not authorize this change or if you need assistance with your account, please contact PayPal customer service at: https://www.paypal.com/row/wf/f=ap_email

Same hyperlink: [http://oku-chao.com/image/web/l/primapagina.htm]>

Notice the "s" after "http". That's the giveaway that it's a scam email. PayPal will never ever email you a link to a secure page. They always make you type in your password to log in.

Thank you for using PayPal!

The PayPal Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be
answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the
"Help" link in the header of any page.

Then they add this, just to try and establish some trust:

PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD

NEVER give your password to anyone and ONLY log in at
https://www. paypal.com/ Protect yourself against fraudulent websites
by opening a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing
in the PayPal URL every time you log in to your account.

Well that's fine advice. Notice the "https" even though it's supposed to be the PayPal homepage. Duh! And, of course, that hyperlink goes to [http://oku-chao.com/image/web/l/primapagina.htm]. I mean, fer cryin' out loud, the link would work even though there's a superfluous space between "www." and "paypal".
(Actually, I just tried the links. They open in a new window, not on the Juno web tab. "This page cannot be displayed". Juno is pretty good at blocking virus-laden emails and, I guess, scamspam, too. Yay!)

So, like the scambot says, protect yourself against fraudulant websites.

This has been a public service announcement from the good folks at Blather Review.

Posted by Tuning Spork at August 5, 2005 08:40 PM | TrackBack