Toxic paypal scam....sellers (and everyone) notice this new trick...

Stork

...I don't normally post these things, but this one was made very tempting. A very real appearing 'paypal' message stating that:


"You've got cash!

Peter Philbin just sent you money with PayPal.

Peter Philbin is a Verified buyer."


with an address, the usual paypal drivel and a "just click here to accept payment"!

The message wasn't personalized, though it also didn't say 'paypal user', which was the quickest tip-off.

But human nature is such, that when offered free cash (or treats), one will often suspend commen sense. If you aren't expecting a payment from Peter, don't click..I worry about frequent sellers who might be more accustomed to getting money from unknown names. I don't sell, so it was odd to see, and I still was tempted to click the link.


Hopefully this isn't too annoying...but it really caught my attention. Maybe we should link this over to the liteside?


Cathy

SYRACUSIAN

But human nature is such, that when offered free cash (or treats), one will often suspend commen sense.






How true. Thanks Cathy.

wybrit

I was wondering when one like that would come up.

Pretty soon, the rough edges on that scam will be smoothed out and the scammers will have a windfall.

ccrdragon

You know, if all of these scammers and frauds actually put thier efforts and talents into something honest, we could prolly solve an awful lot of the problems that are going on in the world today....

AuldFartte

Nothing annoying about it ... Thank you for the great information.
Knowledge is the best way to stay ahead of these clowns

AndyBruce

Glad you pointed it out, Cathy. I wasn't aware of this one doing the rounds.

traderdave

My appreciation also for giving a warning

Neptune

thanks for heads up - I would definitely link it.

ccrdragon

The spammers and frauds are getting better in other ways also - used to be that you could always throw away the messages because they were addressed to 'ebay user', but lately I have been getting ones that are addressed specifically to my ebay userid so you gotta stay on your toes about that also!!!

PuddlePirate

Thanks for the warning!

I have been considering creating a web specific account that is nothing but an envelope for a computer killing virus, one where I would "click" on the scammers link and then fill in all the pertinent information they asked for - but the non-existant person data on the account would be the virus, and when I finished entering all the data and hit "send" each field I had entered would unleash a different virus attack. Who could they complain too? They are theives and I could claim I was only protecting my personal identity.

I have thought about this one alot. I am surprised someone else has not done it yet.

laserart

That would be cool, but would it spread to the honest people by way of their e-mail?

Conder101

<< <i>That would be cool, but would it spread to the honest people by way of their e-mail? >>


Not if you didn't include code that would make it spread by email. This would be a "non-contagious" virus only transmitted by "innoculation". The problem would be that someone would take that code and mutate it by grafting on the transmission code to create a contagious version.