Fake Pay Pal scam?

[rickg]

Is this for real? Got this in my email. Can't believe anyone would put both their credit card number AND PIN number on a form like this and send it to anyone! I don't think so! Stupid thing is, I don't even have a Pay Pal account. Something kinda fishy here.


Dear PayPal Customer


This e-mail is the notification of recent innovations taken by PayPal to detect inactive customers and non-functioning mailboxes.

The inactive customers are subject to restriction and removal in the next 3 months.

Please confirm your email address and and Credit Card info number by logging in to your PayPal account using the form below:




Email Address:
Password:
Full Name #:
Credit Card #:
Exp.Date(mm/yyyy) #:
ATM PIN (For Bank Verification) #:




This notification expires May 31, 2003


Thanks for using PayPal!


This PayPal notification was sent to your mailbox. Your PayPal account is set up to receive the PayPal Periodical newsletter and product updates when you create your account. To modify your notification preferences and unsubscribe, go to https://www.paypal.com/PREFS-NOTI and log in to your account. Changes to your preferences may take several days to be reflected in our mailings. Replies to this email will not be processed.

If you previously asked to be excluded from Providian product offerings and solicitations, they apologize for this e-mail. Every effort was made to ensure that you were excluded from this e-mail. If you do not wish to receive promotional e-mail from Providian, go to

Copyright© 2002 PayPal Inc. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.

[ehmand]

This is a scam, and has been going on (off and on) for quite some time. Seems to have been happening a lot recently.

They get your email address from some list they buy, and if you happen to have a Paypal account, especially if you don't use it often - and you're not as skeptical as you should be - BINGO, they get your info and go to town.

Don't every log into Paypal by clicking a link in an email. Whenever you are on Paypal, make sure the first part of the address is


Oh, and don't click on the removeme link, you'll just get more stuff like this....

[rickg]

Figures. One thing that didn't copy when I cut-n-pasted this, was the "submit" button just below where you fill out the info. That must be where it goes to the scammers. The Paypal URL itself appears to be valid. (I cut-n-pasted it to a new browser window).
Any idea why the URL has an extra 's' after the http? () I thought that was the fake URL, but it worked ok, or at least took me to a web page that LOOKED valid.
Probably shouldn't have even messed with it at all, but this one got my curiosity(so far, no dead cat )
BTW, I did delete and block the message.

[Ashman]

I believe paypay will never ask you to confirm that information, except when you log into your paypal account itself.

Many times, I have logged into my paypal and gotten a request while logged in on their secure site, to verify or re validate some info. But never asked so far, regarding my pin, CC #, or the like, usually justa phone number or zip code or something of that nature.

Just like AOL will never ever ask you for your password in an e-mail. I am sure paypal will not do the same asking you for any sensitive info in an e-mail.

Alon

[MikeTangas]

The extra "S" in the https:// is for a secure web page.

[drbrandini]

I believe the 'S' is for Secured site.

[Rick Miley]

I was hit with two different versions of this in two days - both for accounts that I have. The emails were not exactly like the one you posted - instead they had links to web pages that LOOKED authentic. The first email said my Earthlink internet account was about to be terminated and that I should enter updated credit card information using the link provided. Of couse the bell sounded in my head immediately so I called them. Confirmed on the phone that it was a scam. The very next day I got a similar email saying that my Paypal account (which I do have) needed an updated credit card.

I checked out the links in both of these emails and they both included stuff that looked authentic. They used a redirecting technique that I had not seen before, which is to put some stuff after the web address that redirects it to another address. Looks something like "http://www.earthlink.com@123.456.89.9/pagename.htm". It looks like an earthlink address, but actually goes there and then redirects itself to the numeric IP address. Very sneaky indeed.

Just for fun I tried both of the links in the emails. The Earthlink one worked, but Paypal has apparently gotten wise to their scheme and blocked the redirection. Nevertheless I'm sure that a bunch of people are going to fall for this scheme.

I just recieved a similar ebay deal. Be very careful because they look exactly the same as the real deal.