Another PayPal email scam
Rhamlin
Posts: 9,022 ✭✭✭✭✭
Just received a scam email today disguised as PayPal. Said my payment of $349.99 To Lexicon Computer services would soon be charged to my account. Be aware
1
Comments
And NEVER click on a link in an email that looks odd.
If you have concerns, go to the actual website of the place and check your account.
This happens a lot. Your bank account has been locked, there has been strange activity on your paypal and it's locked, we received your payment, blah blah blah.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
So, correct me if I'm wrong, I can open the email without risk? I know better than to open attachments or click on any links, but I am curious, and I want to open the email. I think I got two scam emails today, first one from netflix, I don't have a netflix account, and then I got the paypal one as well.
It isn't actually opening the link, in most cases, that is the problem.
But usually it brings you to a page that looks official, with an official looking login and they often contain malicious code, that will add spyware or some sort of tracking cookie. Most often, a good virus protection will block it, but no point in putting yourself in a bad position.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
Boy, the scammers are out in force right now. While I was busy going in through the log-in page in my password manager, heading for the real Medicare site, I was notified via another email address that I had an email from one of my credit card carriers.
The Medicare email said I had a new electronic message and I should take a certain route to get to said message. When the real site opened, it gave a different route which ultimately said I had no unread messages. I then promptly closed out of my real Medicare site.
The scam Medicare email had tried to route me to the ‘claims’ page but the real site didn’t go that way at all. Scratch scam #1.
I then went to the other email account to look into this new email. This one said there had been some recent changes to my credit score and if I ‘clicked here’ I could see what those changes were and offered a bar to click on to view my credit score.
I have no need to worry about my credit score so Scam #2 was headed directly for the trash as well.
My guess is that current scuttlebutt regarding another round of stimulus checks has the scammers frothing at the mouth wanting to get a shot at some of that if it comes to pass.
It’s a jungle out there, kiddies, and you’ve got to stay vigilant.... 👴🏻
Pay attention to every little detail. Netflix, PayPal and Apple will not have any misspelled words in their emails. I got the PayPal email also and it was sent to me and 90 other email accounts starting with "ch". You will never see a list like this from an official company. Just use common sense.
Start another email for bills only and you won't get any emails that will be suspicious.
So that wasn't a real Nigerian prince?
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
You do not want to even open the email if possible unless you're using Thunderbird. You can use Thunderbird in Winblowz or with a Linux box, but as far as phones go, they also make an app for Android I know that works...and the reason is because images can be blocked. You don't want to download images because they often contain adware or worse, and you always download the images when you open an email to some temp folder. But, clicking on a link is potentially even worse.
I sometimes wonder if this has anything to do with problems logging into different online accounts to pay bills.