Examples of Suspected Fraud/Fake Emails

[PayPal_Adrian]

Hello everyone!

One of the greatest strengths consumers possess against fraud and phishing is education and collaboration.  To help support your safety online, I'm going to open this special thread up for you.  Here, you can post examples of what you believe to be attempts by individuals to defraud you or others of their hard earned valuables and money. 

Before we begin, a few housekeeping points:

• We will be using this as a "master thread," so if we find an example in other areas of the boards, we may merge the post into this one.

• For everyone's safety, please remove any last names or contact information (including email addresses) from your examples.  In many instances, the names provided by fraudsters are fake or may actually be the name of someone they already defrauded. 

• On that same note, please don't ever attempt to confront a fraudster or attempt to track them down.  Instead, turn the information you do have over to your local authorities. 

• Please also remove any links from your posts, as these could potentially go to spoofed or phishing websites.

Other than that, we only ask that you keep it productive and stay within the Forum Decorum and posting guidelines.  I'll be stopping in on a regular basis to clean house and comment on posts, so don't be surprised if you see my mug - or another moderator - stopping in to say hello! 

With that said, I'm going to start moving posts in, so you might see some older examples mixed in with the new posts.  I hope this thread becomes a great resource for everyone!

Stay safe,

Adrian

[rktyndall]

I received this from email services At email1.paypal.com

On 1 Mar. 2012, your credit card has been removed from your PayPal account.

Possible reasons for removal:

1. Your credit card has expired.
2. Your credit card has been declined.
3. Your credit card has insufficient funds to cover a recent transaction.

To avoid any interruption to your service, please add a new credit card by following the steps below. If you do not add a credit card:

• You may no longer be able to send instant PayPal payments.

To add a new credit card, click on the 'Add Credit Card' button below:

[James77]

I got this email on March 1st as well - I'm pretty sure they are not PayPal and are fishing for credit card info. I would just ignore and delete.

[irenemaxwell]

I too received the fraud email.  I contacted paypal security and they asked that I immediately change my password and security questions.  They also asked that I forward the email to spoof@paypal.com

[kokaneebaby]

I have gotten this just yesterday as well but it was for a cell phone. I wanted $175 for the phone and they offered to pay $270 for it and then when i asked if they had sent the payment i got what looked like a pretty badly worded email from what was claimed to be paypal. I after having read this forum am sending the email to paypal and keeping my item before i end up victim to such terrible nonsense. Thank you all for posting your experiences to save new sellers like myself!

[figueiraslick]

Dear PayPal member,

We are writing regarding your PayPal Account.

Case ID : (PayPal-5128-SS512-GE5023)

We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party.
Because protecting the security of your account is our primary concern,
we have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features.We understand
that this may be an inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection.

Note : Federal law provides certain protection to individual customers when there is unauthorized account activity.
This guarantee provides additional protection from loss resulting from unauthorized activity.

What you need to do:
Activate your account by click on the link bellow and complete the fields :

Click here to activate your account

- Update your information immediately.
If you have questions, we are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Copyright © 1995-2011 PayPal Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[lwards]

Hi, I get one of these at least once a month.  I know better than to click the link, but if you hover your curser over it, you can see the real address.  It is not paypal of course.  I was told to just forward them to spoof@paypal.com also, but I worry about those that are more naive. Our IT department at work is awsome and is a really good resource.  the more I ignored them, the more assertive they got.  The last one said someone else is claiming ownership to my account and I have to click this link to verify its mine and not his?? I thought his? I have a very unique feminine name.. hahahaha.  I decided to fire an email back to them threatening to report them to the government fraudulant branch if they didn't leave me alone.  sooooo, today I recieve the exact same one you did.  They just don't give up!!!

[lynnhaigh]

This is an authorization letter to confirm that Lillian  is a bona fide buyer, and your fund $1,800.00 CAD has been deducted from the buyer's account and has been "APPROVED" but will not be credited to your account until the shipment reference/tracking number is sent to us for verification so as to secure both the buyer and the seller.

We also use this medium to confirm that your PayPal funds is safe with us on Transaction ID :- RW.... So, do carry on with the shipment as instructed and your account shall be credited as soon as we receive and verify the shipment tracking number through our verification department onlinetracking

Thank you for the patience and understanding.

It is our policy to protect our users.

And if you have any further complain, don't hesitate to contact us at PayPal Verification Department Team onlinetracking2

Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team

---

Copyright © 1999-2010 PayPal. All rights reserved. PayPal (USA) Limited is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United State of America as an electronic money institution. PayPal FSA Register Number: 832542.

PayPal Email ID PP9005

[Temp20230526aa]

I received this email today.  It seems suspicious mainly because it's from Australia.

Dear valued PayPal member, PayPal is constantly working to ensure security by regularly screening the accounts in our system. We recently reviewed your account, and we need more information to help us provide you with secure service. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited. We would like to restore your access as soon as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience.  Why is my account access limited? Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s):  February 29, 2012: We would like to ensure that your account was not accessed by an unauthorized third party. Because protecting the security of your account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection.  Case ID Number: PP-072-658-482 You must click the link below and enter your password for email on the following page to review your account. <phishing link removed> Please visit the <phishing link removed> and complete the "Steps to Remove Limitations."  Thank you for using PayPal!, PayPal Account Review Department PayPal Email ID PP522

Copyright © 1999-2011 PayPal. All rights reserved. PayPal is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority as an electronic money institution. PayPal FSA Register Number: 226056.

[7oneG]

I'm being asked to pay western union $800, so a payment can be comfirmed. (Supposedly.)

Either this is a scam, of its a stupid way to do business.

If this is legit, I'm sure the 'purchaser' doesn't realise I'm not in the same city as she.

(Which would make the whole transaction a mistake.)

[moondragon1]

Just got an email from Paypal.fr.  I know that Paypal.fr is the french site and accordingly the message is all in french.  I have a feeling though, that it's probably spam as it actually says that the message was sent via <removed>.

Objet : Notification de connexion à votre compte PayPal.

Madame, Monsieur,

Nous vous envoyons cet email à la suite d'une connexion réussie à 
votre interface client.

Identifiant client : PP-61862
Ip de connexion : 41.140.132.108
Heure de connexion : 24-03-2012 



Cet email est destiné à vous sensibiliser à la sécurité des services 
que vous avez chez PayPal et à mieux les protéger.

Pour modifier les réglages de ces alertes, rendez-vous dans votre 
compte PayPall.

Nous avons maintenant besoin que vous confirmiez à nouveau les informations de votre comptePayPal, car il peut avoir été utilisé par des des personnes malveillantes.

La procêdure est très simple :.

1. Télécharger le formulaire ci-joint et l'ouvrir à une fenêtre de navigateur sécurisé.
2. Une fois ouvert, vous sera fournie avec des mesures pour rétablir votre accès, puis suivez les instructions.

This roughly translates to:

Subject: Notification of connection to your PayPal account.
 
Dear

We send you this email after a successful connection to
your client interface.

Customer ID: PP-61862
Ip connection: 41140132108
Time of connection: 24-03-2012



This email is intended to alert you to security services
you have with PayPal and better protect them.


To change the settings of these alerts, go to your
PayPall account.
 

We now need you to confirm the information again for your comptePayPal because itmay have been used by attackers.

The procedure is very simple.

Download the attached form and open it in a secure browser window.
Once opened, you will be provided with steps to restore your access, then follow the instructions.

I can safely say that this doesn't seem right for many reasons and so I haven't downloaded the attachement and have deleted the message.  Just leaving this as a heads up and looking for a confirmation my suspicions are correct.