I fell Victim to a Paypal Scam [Archive]

MMcG

05-21-2004, 10:26 AM

Hi I thought I'd post here so a Mod might post this up as a caution to other Monkeys - because I know a ton of us use Paypal to buy and sell bike parts and such.

I got an email on Sunday that went like this:

Dear ***************,

We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your PayPal account may
have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security
of your account and of the PayPal network is our primary concern.
Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily limited access to
sensitive PayPal account features.
Click below in order to regain access to your account:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

For more information about how to protect your account, please visit
PayPal's Security Center, accessible via the "Security Center" link located
at the bottom of each page of the PayPal website.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your
assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire PayPal
system. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
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.

PayPal Email ID PP198
PayPal Email ID PP316

Well I questioned it at first, so I tried to access PayPal via the web and was unable to get into my account. So my next step was to respond to this email - it took me to a site that looked exactly like Paypal and asked me to re-enter my sign up information and account info. I did so and then I was sent over to my paypal account and I figured, yeah it was legit.

Turns out it wasn't - found out the hard way last night when some focker used my account to spend over $700 of my fuggin money fraudulently!
:mad:

So my night last night and my morning today have been spent alerting my Bank and PayPal (who confirmed the email as fraudulent and not from them).

So for the time being I'm out over $700 until this gets settled.

I hope they catch the fockers and I somehow get a chance to testify to prosecute their asses.

Just wanted to through this out there as an alert.

Sorry for the length.

Mark

BMXman

05-21-2004, 11:15 AM

sorry that's to bad...but this is exactly why I never keep more than 100 bucks in my Paypal account at any one time...good luck with Paypal...I have had some bad expereinces with them when it comes to disputes...hopefully yours will turn out better than mine did....D

MMcG

05-21-2004, 11:29 AM

It wasn't PayPal's fault - it was my gullible nature and the crook didn't use my PayPal account but my Debit Mastercard account to conduct his friggin fraudulent transactions.

blong

05-21-2004, 11:33 AM

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

that looks like a genuine paypal link. how do they get the fake page on to the paypal domain?

Toshi

05-21-2004, 11:39 AM

Originally posted by blong
that looks like a genuine paypal link. how do they get the fake page on to the paypal domain?
i bet he just cut 'n pasted the email, and that was what the link displayed as. sorta like this, only not with ubbcode:

http://www.dell.com/ (http://www.apple.com/)

i got hit by paypal fraud this week, too, but in a different manner: some dude got a hold of my address (available on the internet or in a phone book) and my credit card #, started a new paypal account, and tried to ring up $1600 in charges for "Professional Services" :dead: . only $860 of them went through, but still it's a pain.

hopefully i should get my money back quickly -- already sent off an affidavit -- since this is easily seen as fraud, as i have my own, longstanding paypal account with which i have my other credit card on file (this stolen credit card was never given by me to paypal), and this fraudulent activity only involved this just-created account. :rolleyes:

MMcG

05-21-2004, 11:40 AM

Originally posted by blong
that looks like a genuine paypal link. how do they get the fake page on to the paypal domain?

I was suspicious when I got the email. Tried to get into PayPal on my own and couldn't gain full access - so I thought it was legit.

Went back and followed the instructions in the email and voila got screwed.

I contacted PayPal and they confirmed the email did not originate from them and that the linked address was not theirs.

Scary stuff I tell ya. Hopefully I'm more gullible than the rest of the people thes asshats tried to scam - otherwise there are probably a ton of people like me going through a bunch of crap right now to get things restored.

Fockers!:angry:

tmx

05-21-2004, 11:42 AM

:( so sorry to hear.

it's not $700, but might cheer you up...if you'd like to meet at mtn creek this w/e i'd be happy to bring the spare DH bike. we'd need to find some brakes though. pm w/your contact info if you're down for saturday.

good luck hashing out the fraud and thanks for the heads up.

t

damn, toshi too. bad news. good luck to both for a swift reimbursement remedy.

RideND

05-21-2004, 11:47 AM

I received the same email last week. I found it weird because I dont remember signing up for paypal. I remember I went there but I wasnt 18 or didnt have a credit card. I knew even if I did sign up I didnt have any money in there so I didnt bother with reactivating my account or whatever. I hope you get your money back and they fix this problem.

Slugman

05-21-2004, 11:54 AM

Originally posted by MMcG
I was suspicious when I got the email. Tried to get into PayPal on my own and couldn't gain full access - so I thought it was legit.

When you tried to access Paypal, was it through their link - or your own bookmark/favorite?

MMcG

05-21-2004, 11:55 AM

Originally posted by Slugman
When you tried to access Paypal, was it through their link - or your own bookmark/favorite?

I manually typed in the URL

MMcG

05-21-2004, 11:56 AM

Originally posted by chromegoddess
:( so sorry to hear.

it's not $700, but might cheer you up...if you'd like to meet at mtn creek this w/e i'd be happy to bring the spare DH bike. we'd need to find some brakes though. pm w/your contact info if you're down for saturday.

good luck hashing out the fraud and thanks for the heads up.

t

damn, toshi too. bad news. good luck to both for a swift reimbursement remedy.

I have baseball with my Sons on Saturday morning/afternoon and then I'm doing my first ever XC race on Sunday in Winsted, CT

Thank you so much for your kind offer - and not having brakes would probably help me - I used mine too much - or improperly when I was at platty.

Any DHing in the cards for you over Memorial DAy weekend??

tonyhawk

05-21-2004, 12:07 PM

that really sucks mark. if you still have the email, you can forward it to the FBI - www.fbi.gov, look for the "Submit a Tip" page. might help in tracking the criminals down and preventing more scams.

Slugman

05-21-2004, 12:09 PM

Originally posted by MMcG
I manually typed in the URL

That's F'ed up... how did the scammer know that would happen, unless he just timed it well with their maintence schedule.

Weird man...:confused:

tmx

05-21-2004, 12:30 PM

Originally posted by MMcG
I have baseball with my Sons on Saturday morning/afternoon and then I'm doing my first ever XC race on Sunday in Winsted, CT

Thank you so much for your kind offer - and not having brakes would probably help me - I used mine too much - or improperly when I was at platty.

Any DHing in the cards for you over Memorial DAy weekend??

lots of 1sts for you this year, eh? good luck on sunday. hope the mmcg family kicks arse all w/e.

no brakes...ha! i'll be at the u.s. open over mem day. might get to pkill the w/e following. lemme know if you'll be at either and in need of bikeage. keep an eye out for loaner brakes.

again, good luck with the scammage reimbursement. i feel for you guys and dread the day it happens to me. ain't that a crack and a half that i pretty much expect it'll happen to all of us eventually. hopefully i'm wrong.

MMcG

05-21-2004, 12:35 PM

Originally posted by chromegoddess
lots of 1sts for you this year, eh? good luck on sunday. hope the mmcg family kicks arse all w/e.

no brakes...ha! i'll be at the u.s. open over mem day. might get to pkill the w/e following. lemme know if you'll be at either and in need of bikeage. keep an eye out for loaner brakes.

again, good luck with the scammage reimbursement. i feel for you guys and dread the day it happens to me. ain't that a crack and a half that i pretty much expect it'll happen to all of us eventually. hopefully i'm wrong.

It will be just me and my sons - the MMcG family is slightly different than it used to be thanks to my cheating ex.

I'm sure the boys will kick butt this weekend - not sure about their Dad, but I'll do my best.

What is the spare DH bike? I could always bring my 7" Avid Mechs and some cable or something.

Good luck at the NORBA Race! Rip it up okay!! :)

Cheers,

Mark

tmx

05-21-2004, 12:47 PM

Originally posted by MMcG
It will be just me and my sons - the MMcG family is slightly different than it used to be thanks to my cheating ex.

I'm sure the boys will kick butt this weekend - not sure about their Dad, but I'll do my best.

What is the spare DH bike? I could always bring my 7" Avid Mechs and some cable or something.

Good luck at the NORBA Race! Rip it up okay!! :)

Cheers,

Mark

ouch! cheaters never prosper, wives, paypals scams, bike thieves. (gee, ain't that idealistic.) btw, you're derailing your own thread!! haha. take the frustration from your pay-non-pal and put that in every pedal stroke.

look for email shortly.

Macrider

05-21-2004, 01:11 PM

Something simiar happened to me - and I don't remember doing what you did (although it may have happened) - I got a security warning from Ebay that someone was trying to set up new accounts using my info. - I responded that it wasn't me & they froze all the attempts to do business as me on ebay....and ebay told me to watch for any unauthorized activity on my card - two weeks go by and nothing - then yesterday I've got $300 worth of charges on Recycler.com & Trucktrader.com - not mine!

I had to cancel the card & start the process to deny the charges - what a pain!

Slish

05-21-2004, 01:47 PM

I have been receiving the Paypal thing in my email for a few weeks. I don't have an account so that struck me odd. More importantly, my internet provider has spam protection and my virus program picked it up also so I have been fortunate.

We have had scams like that in Canada where you receive an email from a bank and basically says the same thing: " Go to this link and type in your password and id" I also believe there was an issue with Citibank customers but that could have been limited to just the Canadian customers.

From what I have heard, if you receive an email from what you think is a reputable company, you shouldn't have to click on a link or type in a new address to get the information that it is promising. Just an FYI.

MMcG

05-21-2004, 02:28 PM

Originally posted by chromegoddess
ouch! cheaters never prosper, wives, paypals scams, bike thieves. (gee, ain't that idealistic.) btw, you're derailing your own thread!! haha. take the frustration from your pay-non-pal and put that in every pedal stroke.

look for email shortly.

Thanks for the email!

Back to my thread - now I have to go file a police report with my town to satisfy my bank. Fock!

Like my little town of Avon police dept. can do anything to solve this one.:rolleyes:

Evel Monkey

05-21-2004, 02:29 PM

Mark

Yesterday had to be odd, first exciting news then bad news.

Sorry to hear about this.

MMcG

05-21-2004, 02:37 PM

Originally posted by Evel Monkey
Mark

Yesterday had to be odd, first exciting news then bad news.

Sorry to hear about this.

The Soul news really didn't wow me, since everyone and their brother is getting that deal.

The paypal thievery really pisses me off though.

And on top of that my youngest son had a physical today and they detected a heart murmur. He has to go for an EKG on Tuesday. :(

I Are Baboon

05-21-2004, 03:23 PM

Mark, that just sucks ass. Hopefully your money will be returned quickly.

Damn criminals. :mad:

Let me know if there is anything I can do.

nicklin

05-21-2004, 05:43 PM

i still want t oknow, how the hell did the croooks get a website that looks exactly like paypal, smelling like paypal, and does everything that paypal's web site does, and to top it off, have a domain uder paypal .com? i'm confused..:confused:

Macrider

05-21-2004, 05:51 PM

Originally posted by nicklin
i still want t oknow, how the hell did the croooks get a website that looks exactly like paypal, smelling like paypal, and does everything that paypal's web site does, and to top it off, have a domain uder paypal .com? i'm confused..:confused:

for me it wasn't Paypal - it was Ebay - same scam - what they do is send you an email that has a link (allegedly to ebay) when you open the page, it looks just like ebay and takes you through a whole series of steps where you fill out info (the page has ebay's exact logo etc. - very good copy) - when you are done & you submit the info, it actually opens a real ebay page, so you feel like you were really in ebay - very clever, very easy to fall for...

sucks a bunch

Toshi

05-21-2004, 06:24 PM

Originally posted by nicklin
i still want t oknow, how the hell did the croooks get a website that looks exactly like paypal, smelling like paypal, and does everything that paypal's web site does, and to top it off, have a domain uder paypal .com? i'm confused..:confused:
the domain wasn't under paypal.com. i can guarantee this. there are ways to make it appear like it is (fake address bar via javascript, an address that is all www.paypal.com%fakesite.ru, or a simple link that reads paypal.com but takes you somewhere else)...

AA_Freeze

05-21-2004, 06:27 PM

For all of you that have questions about internet fraud, go to www.mtbr.com and check out the classifieds, on top of the board is everything you ever wanted to know about fraudulent transactions. They use phising (fishing) spam mail to gain acess to your ebay,paypal, whatever passwords and such. Knowledge is power when it comes to these @sswipes, read up on all of the types of frauds and educate yourselves against it.

I hope you get your money bro! good luck :D

nicklin

05-21-2004, 07:58 PM

Originally posted by Toshi
the domain wasn't under paypal.com. i can guarantee this. there are ways to make it appear like it is (fake address bar via javascript, an address that is all www.paypal.com%fakesite.ru, or a simple link that reads paypal.com but takes you somewhere else)...

That's true, but what I'm asking is:

the email contained :

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

and that IS the log in page of paypal. what gives.

gmac

05-21-2004, 09:05 PM

Man I kaint stand it.

Good for you bro. Kick her aish to the curb. Tough on the kids. But, you got to look out for # 1. People make mistakes. Just not cool w/ the Hiv and Hep-C... out there. Unfortunate.

The Paypal thing sucks. Part of being a trusting person I guess. But, look at it this way your a a beacon of hope and humanity to all Monkeys MMcG. And, if I had a spare set of brakes I'd give em to ya for free. (sold em).

Good luck ! & Thanks for the warning.

fonseca

05-21-2004, 11:55 PM

Originally posted by nicklin
That's true, but what I'm asking is:

the email contained :

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

and that IS the log in page of paypal. what gives.

Toshi answered your question already.

I have been receiving this email and the ebay one on an almost weekly basis. I can see this being an effictive scam, since many less computer savvy people use these services.

AA_Freeze

05-22-2004, 12:17 AM

Barbaton

05-22-2004, 09:29 AM

Originally posted by AA_Freeze
These are called spoof sites, just a copy used to trick you into giving your info. Paypal never send emails with a link.

It helps to set your mail reader to show everything in text, instead of rendering HTML. That way, you can see that the displayed link www.paypal.com, is really my.scam.com.ru in the actual link tag. We get 4 or 5 of these /day to our staff email address at work...

Toshi

05-22-2004, 09:48 AM

Originally posted by Barbaton
It helps to set your mail reader to show everything in text, instead of rendering HTML. That way, you can see that the displayed link www.paypal.com, is really my.scam.com.ru in the actual link tag. We get 4 or 5 of these /day to our staff email address at work...
congrats on your first real post outside of the sandbox! :D heh

Incubus

05-22-2004, 12:50 PM

Sorry to hear about that. That s*cks.

I'd posted THIS (http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82153&highlight=paypal) in the lounge not too long ago. I wish it could've prevented you're getting taken. I hope it works out for you.

In the meantime, check out: http://www.paypalsucks.com/

rydronthestorm

05-23-2004, 09:38 AM

man i hate to hear about all the negative things happening to you right now. the money the kid. keep pedaling to keep happy.

but this presents the perfect opportunity for me to say buy from your local shop. in a bike shop there is no domain name to worry about or frauded account info. think of the small amount more money you will spend as an investment in your sanity. the local shop is your best connection to getting exactly what you want and knowing the transaction is safe.

the internet buying phenomenon has to end sometime and i hope all of these frauds will wake people up to the fact their money is electronic and electronic is easy to steal. cash is king.

everyone take care.

freerider215

05-23-2004, 11:26 AM

Awh, Mark that sucks man. Sorry to hear it. You'll probably get your money back but I doubt anytime soon. I get those emails on a pretty regular basis, but they always show up in my bulk folder so I know they aren't legit. I get similar ones from "ebay" too. I did have my ebay account taken over by some a$$ in Australia. This person put up fake auctions for world series tickets. Auctions were won totalling $13,000 and change, but because my ebay and paypal info didn't match paypal wouldn't accept the payments.

MMcG

05-23-2004, 03:15 PM

Originally posted by rydronthestorm
man i hate to hear about all the negative things happening to you right now. the money the kid. keep pedaling to keep happy.

but this presents the perfect opportunity for me to say buy from your local shop. in a bike shop there is no domain name to worry about or frauded account info. think of the small amount more money you will spend as an investment in your sanity. the local shop is your best connection to getting exactly what you want and knowing the transaction is safe.

the internet buying phenomenon has to end sometime and i hope all of these frauds will wake people up to the fact their money is electronic and electronic is easy to steal. cash is king.

everyone take care.

I buy plenty of stuff from my local bike shops so don't give me that crap - this has nothing whatsoever to do with buying local or not.

freerider215

05-23-2004, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by rydronthestorm
man i hate to hear about all the negative things happening to you right now. the money the kid. keep pedaling to keep happy.

but this presents the perfect opportunity for me to say buy from your local shop. in a bike shop there is no domain name to worry about or frauded account info. think of the small amount more money you will spend as an investment in your sanity. the local shop is your best connection to getting exactly what you want and knowing the transaction is safe.

the internet buying phenomenon has to end sometime and i hope all of these frauds will wake people up to the fact their money is electronic and electronic is easy to steal. cash is king.

everyone take care.

what the f*ck are you talking about? it has nothing to do with buying parts on line, nothing at all. oh, and like your local shop would never rip you off? bull f*cking sh*t. I know off shops that prey on people. Retail prices themselves are what rips people off. "the internet buying phenomenon has to end sometime" , you just keep telling yourself that. man, you must be one dumba$$ f*ck. cash is paper by the way, not king. what a bunch of sh*t.

x-vert

05-23-2004, 10:54 PM

I got the same email !!!

I do over $2000 worth of ebay transactions every month, and I was about to submit the info, but decided to wait untill monday (recived the email on friday). My account was also disabled, and I didnt even think that this would be fake. So days went by and I was still to lazy to enter the info, and then my account just turne back on, and i didnt even notice it, i even forgot about the whole thing.

Lazyness = good :o: :p

Shortbus

05-24-2004, 08:06 AM

I Are Baboon

05-24-2004, 04:32 PM

Originally posted by rydronthestorm

the internet buying phenomenon has to end sometime

LMAO

U.S. retail e-commerce totaled $15.5 BILLION for first quarter 2004. The only way internet buying is going to stop is if the internet crashes.

E-commerce since 1999 (in billions)

http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/image/chart1.gif

Snickryder

05-25-2004, 01:15 PM

Originally posted by nicklin
That's true, but what I'm asking is:

the email contained :

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

and that IS the log in page of paypal. what gives.

I've had a couple of emails from PayPal come through that are not legit. First thing to do is view the full headers in your email system. If the email is legit the return address and ALL the from addresses will be paypal.com servers. If you see anything different, it's probably a fake. Forward the email to PayPal, or copy the email into one of their online contact forms and ask them if it's legit. There are really good about getting back to you!

The address looks right, so I'm not sure how they did it, unless they have that address shown to you and another address under it that is used. Do a "view source" on your original email and see if there is another address in the code.

Just my 2 cents...

Rick

Repack

05-25-2004, 04:59 PM

That sucks. I don't trust links anymore. I just got an email joke from a friend, where if I forwarded it to 8 people and hit Alt+8, the punckline would appear. I was like, "Uh no?" Anything that can get into my computer I avoid like the plague. I figured that the joke thing was a way of gathering addresses to spam.

I hope you get you cash back. That blows. Is Paypal liable in the same way that a credit card company is liable? Probably already been asnwered. I'll read the rest of the thread.

Good luck.

HippieShredder

05-27-2004, 10:43 PM

I got that same exact email about a month ago!!! I was planning on coming back to it and following the link to take care of the "problem" but in the meantime wanted to read the rest of my new messages, and accidently clicked delete instead of next. When I was done checking my email I went to paypal.com by entering the URL manually, and saw that my account was fine. I contacted paypals customer support and they notified me that my account was fine and in good standing and gave me no warning of the email being a scam that needed investigation! I never gave it anymore thought. It's so freaky to find out it was a scam and I almost got SCREWED! I cant believe I told paypals customer service that I got an email stating I had problems with my account and their response was to tell me everything was fine without advising me that I had almost been a victim of fraud!!!

Pogo

06-07-2004, 10:15 AM

Do you come in a 9/16th??

Now that was clever. Hey Mark I am sorry man, thanks for posting though because I have received this same e-mail and might have fallen for it if you had not given out a warning. By the way if your paypal is linked to your checking savings and or creditcard having a small balance in your Paypal account is no guarrenty of security! This is just scary stuff. And your no dummy Mark, you were the victom here. Scumbags are annoying, clever scumbags really piss me off.
PS: I went ahead and changed my password just in case and I intend on doing this again regularly.

Str8OutaBallard

07-28-2004, 03:51 PM

I'm sure you will recieve an email today or shortly about...
"In re PayPal Litigation, Case No. 02 1227 JF PVT, pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose"...
it sounds like you qualify as a "Long form Clamaint"... a link to the form:

https://ppl.gardencitygroup.com/ppl/fs/longClaim?action=clear

Have you downloaded the eBay toolbar w/Accnt. Gaurd? It's set up to detect 'Spoof' paypal and eBay sites and if you happen upon one you can send paypal a link to it so they can get it shut down... here's the link:

http://pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar/download.html

this info should help you out...

~Mike

llkoolkeg

08-05-2004, 08:09 AM

:nono: :think: :mad: :nuts:

-----Original Message-----
From: US Bank - Customer Service [mailto:customers@usbank.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 8:11 AM
To: XXXXXXX XXXXXXX
Subject: Fraud Verification Process
Importance: High

Dear U.S. Bank customer,
We recently noticed one or more attempts to login into your U.S. Bank Online Account from a strange I.P. address and we have reasons to believe that the account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security of your account and of the U.S. Bank network is our primary concern.

Therefore, we tried to verify your account information and we were unable to complete it due to an internal error within our processors. To avoid your account suspension, we demand that you take a little time to renew your records in order to also prevent any future problems with the online service.

Follow the link below in order to renew your information:

https://www4.usbank.com/internetBanking/RequestRouter?requestCmdId=DisplayLoginPage

For more information about how to protect your account, please visit U.S. Bank Security Center.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire U.S. Bank system.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

The U.S. BANK Customer Service

Please do not reply to this mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered