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Top 10 E-Mail Scams 5
The Come-On
This scam usually comes in the form of an e-mail warning you that you need to update your bank (or PayPal) account for security purposes.
The Scam
The link in the e-mail takes you to what looks like your bank's real Web site, but is actually a rogue site designed to capture your login information. Once the criminals have this information, they can go and log into your actual account and begin siphoning money, information, and even try to use the same log-in information for your other accounts, as most people use the same password across various sites.
What You Can Do
Carol says: "Crooks have come up with some pretty ingenious ways of disguising themselves as a trusted institution or company in order to get consumers' personal information. The key to avoiding ID theft via being phished is to remember that YOU are in control of your personal data. Keep it secure, and don't give it to someone who prompts you to unless you're confident that they need it for legitimate purposes."
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Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsMr. Soe MyintJul 16th 2008 6:23AM
AOL should not allow these SCAM mails to the users - to begin with. I am sure they are sent to millions of e-addresses.
AOL should intercept and report them to the government authorities.
As a user, I want to forward such mails to AOL for their action. Why is AOL so passive with this matter?
ChrisJul 16th 2008 10:17AM
It's not just AOL, it's EVERY internet provider out there and the problem is that there are just so many of those scams floating around that it's impossible to stop them.
Fortunately most of them give themselves away. It's nice to know that PayPal is protecting my account and that I need to update my information - IF in fact I actually had a pay pal account. It's the same thing with the email from my 'bank' - they never seem to get the right bank, and I've already confirmed with MY bank that they won't ever ask for that type of information by email OR phone call, they'll call and ask me to come in the bank if there's really a problem.
CamJul 16th 2008 11:09AM
A way better tip to avoid phishing is just to look at the URL. Phishers can't use, say, paypal.com.
If your unsure, just type into the mainpage of the website, and log in.
Thomas EdwardsJul 16th 2008 12:16PM
When they phish for info just put in alot of bogus info. I do this and the phishing emails have reduced from about 50 a month to about 4.
just my luckJul 16th 2008 1:17PM
Phishing: What I do with these frequent attacks from PayPal, Ebay or various banks is open another browser, go to their web site and look for a way to contact them. Then forward the fake email. There is information in the header that their security people can use to shut them down. The most common forwarding addresses are "spoof", or "abuse" as in "spoof@paypal.com". I've even gotten some from the IRS. Believe me, these sites don't do business by email. The responsibility for reporting these is yours, not your browser's.
As far as AOL is concerned, they have no way to know that these are scams. The scammers forge the email, including the "from" address and look completely genuine. The scammers know how to bypass your browser's screening by using such subjects as "job offer" or "urgent".or misspelling, for example "v!agra" or v i a g r a.
BillJul 16th 2008 12:26PM
Just had a phish this morning claiming that I had an online banking sign-in error and my account was locked due to too many sign-in attempts. It had all the official bank headers, footnotes, etc. and wanted me to "click here" to reset my passcode. Two things alerted me that it was probably a phish - they had misspelled a word in the alert and their e-mail address used a "0" in place of an "o" in the bank name. After verifying my account was still OK via the normal sign-in route I forwarded the e-mail to the bank's fraud department.
SandyJul 18th 2008 1:22AM
About email that appears to come from eBay or PayPal...If the email is legitimate, it will address you by name and/or the screen name you use for these sites. It won't be something like "Dear PayPal User..." or other anonymous greetings. If you do get a bogus email from either of these sites, forward it to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com. This allows eBay and PayPal to try to track down these scammers, and you'll get a reply to that effect.