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Another Paypal Scam

PayPal Users Hit With Another Scam
Thu Mar 6, 3:00 PM ET
Paul Roberts, IDG News Service

Another Internet scam that targets online shoppers who use the EBay PayPal payment service is circulating, according to reports from those who have received the suspicious e-mail and to messages posted to online discussion groups.

PayPal did not respond to requests for comment.

The e-mail appears to come from "[email protected]" and has a subject line that reads "Your PayPal account is Limited." The body of the message reads, in part: "PayPal is currently performing regular maintenance of our security measures. Your account has been randomly selected for this maintenance, and placed on Limited Access status."

Professional Appearance

Recipients are asked to provide their PayPal account information, credit card number, and bank account number using a form in the body of the e-mail message. A button is provided to "log in" to PayPal's site and update the information.


The message is designed to look like it was generated by PayPal, using graphics from the PayPal Web site as well as fonts and colors similar to legitimate PayPal correspondence. A boilerplate statement about receiving notifications is even supplied at the end of the message, with links to PayPal that allow the recipient to modify their notification preferences.

"It was formatted really nicely. It had the right colors for the PayPal site and there weren't any obvious grammar mistakes," said Karawynn Long, a writer and Web designer in Seattle who received one of the apparent scam e-mail messages. Long was almost fooled by the message into entering her account information.

"The subject of the e-mail was odd. But it was early in the morning. Pre-coffee," Long said.

Searching for the Source

Suspicious of being asked for her confidential account information, however, Long used her e-mail program to view the message's HTML source code. Her search revealed that information submitted using the form would go to a host server with a domain name ending in.ru, the domain suffix for Russia, according to Long.

"When I viewed the source I could see [the scam], but how many people view the source on their e-mail?" Long said.

Scams targeting PayPal are common, according to Matt Sergeant, senior antispam technologist at MessageLabs in Gloucester, England.

Good post. This is the same crap that was being pulled with ebay accounts. I think it's called "spoofing." Ebay cracked down hard on these guys, so they moved on to PayPal. If and when PayPal gets tough, they'll move on to someting else.

As of now, report any suspicious e-mails that you receive directly to PayPal. They're trying to establish a bunch of evidence.

There's really a simple solution to these spoofing scams. Never click on a link you receive in an email from eBay, Half, Paypal or anywhere. Just use your bookmarks and go directly to the site in question. If your account really needs updating, you will find out on the actual site, not through an email.

I think I remember receiving this email. I usually just delete anything I receive from eBay or PayPal. Especially if I haven't used either one in awhile.

I just got the email (and notified paypal). Here it is:

And here is the link:

http://www.paypal.com%2f@%32%30%39%2...65%2E%68%74%6D

Can you believe that?!?! They even ask for your pin number and SS and everything. And you know someone must have fallen for it. Unbelievable.

I find it really ironic. My genuine eBay and Paypal emails go to my junk mail folder while the fraud emails land in my inbox.

Still, I had to do a double take the first time I saw it.

Important enough to be repeated - this should be the FIRST RULE of anyone using the internet,