Can You Spot Phishing Scams?

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Take The Paypal TestWe received the following scam alert from a consumer over the weekend:

Michelle wrote:

I received an email (AOL) from "PayPal" (looked official), in which I was alerted that PayPal was sending a payment of ~ $114.00 to someone, etc. If I did not want to pay this person, I was supposed to click on the link in the email, and be directed to my account. I deleted the email and checked my account on Explorer, just to make sure, and there was no payment being sent to that person.

I have received other emails supposedly from PayPal instructing me to click n the link to verify something on my account. I always delete the emails and log on to my account from a bookmark on my favorites.

Michelle did the right thing here. Any reputable financial company is never going to ask their users to login using a link provided in the email itself.

When you receive an email like this, the rule of thumb is to ALWAYS navigate directly to the website yourself without using the link from the email. Use your bookmarks as Michelle did, or navigate directly there by typing in the URL (ie - www.paypal.com). Then you can login safely knowing you are not being redirected by a scam link in the email itself. Once logged in you can verify if the request is real or not.

If you really are not sure, another option is to call Paypal directly. They have customer service numbers available on their website.

Be sure to try the Paypal Phishing Challenge to sharpen your scam detection skills!

Thanks for the tip Michelle!

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Reader Comments:

I received numerous e-mails

I received numerous e-mails from ebay paypal. I did not have an account with ebay and the e-mails got to be so numerous that I finally had to block ebay. The emails were coming from current ebay users. Watch them closely!

Submitted by moris on Tue, 10/16/2007 - 15:16.

Almost immediately after I

Almost immediately after I set up my PayPal account, I began receiving several of these emails, and it was so unnerving that I eventually closed my (unused) account. Oddly enough, when I went back and set it up again with only online earnings from doing surveys, but without my bank info, I have not received any. (Is there something there to be discovered and checked into?) Nonetheless, all of these should be forwarded to spoof@paypal.com, so that they might actually catch these "SLUGS" (although I prefer a more colorful epithet) and prosecute them. I even told PayPal that I would give access of my computer to any investigative agencies, as well as testifying or giving affidavits in that pursuit. Personally, I think that the mindless jerks who do this kind of thing don't even deserve to be on this planet. Why don't they put their time and energies to bettering the world? I could let loose a whole string of street vernacular about these amoral, useless, victimizing "electronic thugs," but, remember, if PayPay doesn't have the actual email, they can't catch these predators. Those of us being victimized need to take the "small" action of forwarding these to them. Ditto those "foreign bank" letters - "Please help me to unload these millions..." should be forwarded to spam@uce.gov. We need to take action to stop those marbleheads with no desire to better the world, but to only enrich themselves by taking advantage of others - - we have enough of that with questionably "legitimized" politics and business. And, on that note - VOTE!!!

Submitted by Jjilos on Tue, 10/16/2007 - 16:49.

I sell some of my used books

I sell some of my used books on Amazon. I recieved an email telling me that my Amazon seller account was going to be suspended because of another person was attempting to use the account. It had a link which was said it would take me to Amazon security so I could supply information about the account that only I would know. I called Amazon and they said they never send an email like I recieved and that it was Phishing. WOW, it was one of the best I have seen. No mispelled words, really looked real. Glad I called.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10/17/2007 - 08:32.