There were no purchases made on my Paypal account. I did send it off to spoof@paypal.com.
It was slick, I have to give them credit for that. What would have happened if I was easily led? Like some sheep? Grrrr.
Update! Spoof replied right away!
Dear Lambchop,
Thank you for taking the time to contact > spoof@paypal.com> . The email you
reported was not sent by PayPal and is a phishing (fraudulent) email.
What to do Next
Delete the phishing email. If you’ve already responded to the email,
please log in to your PayPal account and perform some important safety
measures.
Go to your Profile and change your password and security questions.
Review the payments listed on your Account Overview.
If you notice a payment that you don’t recognize, visit the PayPal
Security Center to file a claim. We’ll promptly investigate any
suspicious transactions and you won’t be held liable for unauthorized
payments sent from your account.
spoof is very fast, if you gave them any info, then you would have to redo your passwords and security questions, and maybe get a new credit/debit card. that happened to me before, it really sucked. i was a noob at paypal and i gave someone else my password to it. luckily nothing ever happened.
1st rule: never click on links in an email. A sixth grader can disguise a link in an email to make it look like anything they want it to. The real link is somewhere else.
2nd rule: any official communications will have your full name, not your screen name.
3rd rule: always use your own hyperlinks or type in the website address to places such as Paypal or Ebay.
Follow these three simple rules and a person will quickly weed out almost all phishing scams.
Thousands of folks fail prey to these scams every day. Some of them take months or years to dig themselves out of one careless moment. I heard one story of a professor who replied to a spoof and the thieves got a hold of that professor’s email. Every person on that address book was sent a detailed, pleading message saying I am in a foreign country and have been robbed. Can you please wire me money so I can buy a ticket home. It took months for that to unwind.
That spoof@ email response is just a mail robot that automatically replies the same way to every email received by that email address. The real response will arrive in a day or two after someone has actually examined your message.
The first way to know this is a phish is that it does not have your name on it. That means the phishers have just picked up your email id from somewhere, possibly from C&F. Who knows? But a real email from PayPal (or eBay, for that matter) would be addressed to you by your name as recorded on your account with them.
I got one from “ebay” once saying that I had purchased some kind of spell book with my paypal. First of all, I’m not a witch, and secondly I don’t even have an ebay or paypal account! Oh yeah, they’ve got me fooled.
Here’s a fairly common phishing one that pretends it’s from e-Bay:
eBay sent this message to this email address.
Your registered name is included to show this message originated from eBay. Learn more.
Question about Item – Respond Now
eBay sent this message on behalf of an eBay member through My Messages. Responses sent using email will go to the eBay member directly and will include your email address.
Question from zelma56
zelma56 ( 507)
Positive feedback: 100%
Member since: Mar-06-03
Location: Queensland, Australia
Registered on: > www.ebay.com >
Item: VINTAGE 14K GOLD NOTHING CHAIN ITALY (2070651641)
This message was sent while the listing was active.
zelma56 is a potential buyer.
Do you think I could bid on this necklace. I use paypal, have bought over 500 items from the US and have 100% feedback. I understand postage would be higher, I see you havent sold much and may be nervous about this but they normally just put items in a global padded envelope and none have gone astray. I like this necklace very much. Thank you for this consideration.
Have a great day!
Zelma
Respond to this question
Responses in My Messages will not include your email address.
Always remember to complete your transactions on eBay - it’s the safer way to trade.
Is this message an offer to buy your item directly through email without winning the item on eBay? If so, please help make the eBay marketplace safer by reporting it to us. These “outside of eBay” transactions may be unsafe and are against eBay policy. Learn more about trading safely.
Is this email inappropriate? Does it violate reporting it.
Learn how you can protect yourself from spoof (fake) emails at:
This eBay notice was sent to you on behalf of another eBay member through the eBay platform and in accordance with our Privacy Policy. If you would like to receive this email in text format, change your notification preferences.
Note that even though it says it includes my user name, it doesn’t. Also, it’s an item that I am not selling. If you were to look up the item number, you would find it does not exist.
Oh yeah, they’ve got me fooled.