The Top Five E-Mail Scams (2)

A word to the wise: Look at the full email headers on any "suspicious" email. Even then, and even if it looks valid, still use caution. I have received emails supposedly from Yahoo! Mail stating that I have won $500. I followed the link, which looked valid, and the email itself looked valid. However, the "promise" was not valid, and apparently the site was a rogue site. Fortunately, my bank caught that my account was compromised and rectified the problem before any damage was done. This could have occurred through this email, or somewhere else, but it does look like it was through that email.
So, use caution, and look at the full headers. If you are still suspicious, do not click any links, and delete the email. Trust your gut feelings.

PayPal provides an E-mail address to which you can send any E-mails you get that say they are from PayPal, but are not. Forward the E-mail you received to spoof@paypal.com, with a note why you think it's not a legitimate message to you. PayPal tracks down the abusers for you. Ursula

PayPal provides an E-mail address to which you can send any E-mails you get that say they are from PayPal, but are not. Forward the E-mail you received to spoof@paypal.com, with a note why you think it's not a legitimate message to you. PayPal tracks down the abusers for you. Ursula

PayPal provides an E-mail address to which you can send any E-mails you get that say they are from PayPal, but are not. Forward the E-mail you received to spoof@paypal.com, with a note why you think it's not a legitimate message to you. PayPal tracks down the abusers for you. Ursula

I like shopping on Ebay. Around X-mas time I was doing a little surfing on the site. I was logged in with my Ebay name/password and I came accross an auction that looked a little suspicious. It looked like it was selling some womans butt in a thong. Curious me had to click on it. Instead of getting additional information on the auction it immediately screened to the ebay sign-on asking for the account name and password. Wow..( I'm allready signed in)..I back spaced to get out of it and tried again...again it went to the ebay password screen. You got to look for that offical lock to securely sign in and this did not have one. I immediatly left Ebay know that they had a problem. How they could even allow this to happen is beyond me. I know now your not even totally safe on that site either!

use common sense, the sky is defenitly not green.so follow your instint if you think it's to good to be true then it is!

Here's one that doesn't strictly fall undar any of these categories, but I thought some readers might be interested:
I have been using Craigslist to offer tutoring services for 8 months. Generally, it has provided me with a decent clientel. But every now and then I get an email like this:
------------------------
Hi,
I'm a single parent from Baltimore ,MD .I have a son and need a tutor for him.Paul is 16 years old and home schooled.I'm a contractor and travel alot.I just won a new contract in Africa and i'll not like my son to
be alone at home.I've arranged with my cousin living there in (neworleans) that Paul is coming to stay with him for the period am going to use to execute the contract and also to attending Vocal Lessons.Paul will be coming to your location for piano lessons.I've spoken to his tutor about his tour and he had agreed with me.Anyway,I want you to get back to me with the following
details:
Total Fee for three months,one hour per day and two lessons per week
Present residence address and phone number
Your professional and educational experience
What other elements are part of your teaching curriculum?
Do you offer other performance opportunities for your students? such as
festivals and competition.

Best Regard
-----------------------------------
This is likely a scam email - not even the most egregious one I have received.
If you offer services in a local area, beware of this kind of solicitation!

IF you have been a victim of a scam it's usually good to go to the Better Business Bureau at: www.bbb.org and they'll either be able to get your money back, report them to the proper authorites, and/or put a mark out to the public to keep their eye out for that particular business/website.

I have just been a victom of stolen idenity. I just had to refinance my home in order to pay my bills.I am 79years old,I don't know how i will manage to pay this back.I was not aware that I was paying someone elses bills. I can not see very good,m So I couldn't really see the statements. I got so nervous so I took out a loan befdore I was awre that I didn't owe all that money. Is It to late to try to get that money back? please help me. My S Security will not be able to pay that payment.I will have to walk away from my home.

Okay, here's a really simple way to tell when you're receiving a scam attempt from someone purporting to be Ebay, Paypal, or your banking institution...
If Any of these three are really making a legitimate attempt to contact you then they will address you by your given name, for instance the letter will say "Dear Fred Higgins" or "Dear Mary Johnson" they won't address you as, "Dear valued member/customer" nor will they use your Ebay/Paypal I.D. such as : "Dear Johndoe46" to address you.
So if the e-mail addresses you in any other way but your real name then chances are strong that it's a phishing attempt. And remember, no matter how legitimate the e-mail may look at first there are a few other ways to tell such as Copyright dates, Ebay, Paypal & most banks update their website copyrights every year so if you see something like 1995-2005 then you have another clue. Finally, their grammar, it never ceases to amaze me just how poorly most people spell on the internet, as I've read through the comments made on this site I've spotted the most miserable spelling & some of the folks claim to be college graduates. Well the scammers are just as bad, if not worse sometimes, look for glaring spelling mistakes in the grammar from someone pretending to be from your bank, it's truly a pity that most folks still refuse to use a spell check, but that arrogance can be a saving grace for you if you'll take a moment to look & really read the letter

And for AOL users, AOL has a feature in your e-mail that will allow you to see where the e-mail originated from, just below the field that states that the e-mail was sent to you, you will see the line 'sent from the internet'(details) click on the details in the brackets & it will give you the details of the sender. But don't count on the information to post the person's real e-mail address, usually it will be an e-mail address that the phisher has hacked for the express purpose of hiding from the law, but it you report the letter to Ebay or Paypal,
(Spoof@ebay.com or Spoof@paypal.com)

Then make sure that you copy & paste that information at the bottom of the forwarded letter along with the rest of the scam e-mail. They have far better resources to track down the scammer if they have any & all information that you can provide them to find these c***suckers & shut them down. Also for AOL users, AOL uses a specific blue letter icon for their official e-mail, if you don't see that blue envelope to the left of the e-mail, then don't open it, just delete the thing. It's a damned shame that these little features that are meant to help you out on AOL are shunned by the other ISP's. Yahoo especially could take a hint & offer that (details) feature with their e-mail program.

The F.B.I & INTERPOL both have internet fraud divisions as well, just go to their hompages & get the links, both have become very aggressive in their hunts for these dirtbags & will immediately look into any complaints they receive, the postal service has gotten into as well as any fraudulent demands for payment fall into the category of Wire Fraud which is a serious federal offense & they will happily prosecute those found to be commiting wire fraud.

Well hopefully all that I've laid out here will help some of you from becoming victims, I've been fortunate enough in the 14 years I've been on the internet to have never become one of those people who have had there life hacked & ruined by the endless parade of scammers, hackers & virus perpetrators that abound in cyberspace, a lot of my good fortune has been through sheer luck, but being a natural skeptic has helped too, may all of you fare as well.......

Josyne's arrogance and ignorance is appalling. She derides others for mistakes and ridicules and mocks people she doesn't even know about whether or not one reads the paper or whatever and if not she assumes that a person scammed "deserves to be scammed". I hope others who read these very valuable scam notices do not share Josyne's contempt for other people since we are all one big family of humanity on this earth, like it or not.
My advice to those who have been scammed or newbies to the internet like many elderly people and kids is do not open the email if you don't recognize it, or clearly see it is a scam, and NEVER, EVER open a link inside the email. Instead, use your browser and type in the site address and see where you go. I appreciate all the tips by others who have shared in this site. The more we share viable, intelligent and non judgmental information with others instead of hate and contempt like Josyne does, the sooner we can ameliorate the scam problem because the scammers will starve for victims. Education, compassion and knowledge shared with others is the key to helping not only yourself but sharing the wealth of your information with others which in turn contributes to healing the problem of scammers and dishonesty that is so rampant in today's world.

I got an e-mail from AOL that said there was a problem with my acct. I used the hyperlink (stupid) and wound up at a page that looked legit. It wanted my billing info. I started to enter the info until I got to a point where they asked for my password. That's when I knew it was a scam. AOL states over and over that they NEVER ask for your password. I deleted what I had entered so far and called AOL. No billing problem and no e-mail from them. They had me forward the e-mail to their fraud division. I never heard anything about it again. No alerts from AOL about the scam. I hope it's because they closed them down not that they were remiss in warning their customers.

beware of all diet adds, they offer a free sample for shipping and handling then later on after 6 weeks you get a 149.95 charge on a card with a bag of pills you never ordered, but they say you clicked on the link so you are obligated, you return the product and ask for refund, they blow you off.mypills.com stay away from this site.

Ebay and Paypal are really great sites which I use frequently..and yes, I too receive email that often looks REAl supposedly from them (but of course its not)and it is often scary, saying that an email address has been added to my account, or someone has filed a complaint for non-payment etc etc all things that I know did not happen. But its easy to fight this: just forward the phony email to ebay using this address: spoof@ebay.com or to paypal: spoof@paypal.com. You will get a return email from ebay or paypal first acknowledging receipt of your forwarded questionnable email, and then ascertaining that it is indeed NOT from them. If they get these email fast enough they may be able to track where they are coming from and shut them down. Hope this helps.