Examples of Suspected Fraud or Fake Emails

[PayPal_Andy]

Hey Everybody!

In an effort to make things easier to find and research, I'm going to consolidate as many threads as possible where we have examples of people trying to defraud hard working sellers (Craigslist emails, 'PayPal' emails asking you to send money outside of PayPal, etc).  This will also be used as a master thread for future posts regarding this same situation.

When you post your examples here, please remember to not include last names or contact information of whoever is sending these emails.  There's no way to confirm if that person has been defrauded as well and the name is being used fraudulently.

Thanks for your cooperation and remember, keep the conversation productive, on task, and above all, keep it clean. I know these things can be difficult and frustrating, but bleep filled posts or posts that look like government redacted files will never benefit anyone. 😄

Andy

[Lenabop94]

I also got an email asking for me to login using their paypal link because there were unusual activities on my account. However, the sender wasn't even the usual paypal service one but one of my old email addresses and it was about that email that isnt even hooked up to any paypal account. 

[Seymour-]

The scammers have 'stepped up' their game a wee bit.

This morning I got a supposed PayPal suspicious activity on your account email from *removed* asking me to click the link.

So, I clicked the link. it wanted to take me to http:://ihamni.com/reg.html where I was redirected (automatically) to:

*removed*

Where a veeery convincing PP Login page was displayed with the long URL (displayed above). At 1st glance (since the latter part of the domain name is hidden), this URL address looks legitimate.  UNLESS, you know how domain name conventions work.

When reading a domain name (in a URL window), the main (top-level) domain name is immediately to the LEFT of the 1ST '/'. In this case, this 1st '/' is to the left of the 6f38a39...

The scammers tried to hide the fact the page is not being hosted on a legitmate PP server by adding a bunch of sub-domains to their Main domain. They added 'paypal-cgi-bin.webscr.cmd-login-account...' which makes the URL long enough to hide the real domain of giovanamerlin.com.br.

Learn more about domain naming conventions on WikiPedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System#Domain_name_syntax

To the scammers that are reading these posts... your move. 

[HoldYourHorses]

Hi - I reviewed a handful of scams-fraud emails and experienced an exact situation.  I listed a product on craigslist and got a response within two days.   The emailer claimed he was in a secretive service job that prevented him to perform direct actions/visits to view or pay for the product.  He had to use PayPal and an agent to pickup the product and needed payment before doing that.   After agreeing to the asking price with the invoice I sent, I received what appeared as official PayPal notifications to send a portion of the fees, he supposedly deposited into my PayPal account, to his agent for picking up and deliverying the product.  However, I had no such Pending Transaction showing in my PayPal account - just the Invoice I had sent.

anyway, I indicated I didn't have the money to dish out without actually getting the cash directly first.  I also said I needed to follow-up with PayPal to see why the transaction wasn't showing this payment.  The person was emailing daily, sometimes twice a day to see if I was able to continue with the transaction.  Once I indicated the need to check - it all stopped.  Glad I took a few moments to verify before blindly doing something that would be my first time.

[figlee]

Got this today.

PayPal : Account on hold, Action required

Here is the source.

From:  Paypal 
To:  
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 08:49:03 -0700 
Subject: PayPal : Account on hold, Action required 
 
 


PayPal logo

blue Bar

 

Our department has detected that you signed on from a different
device/computer.

 

Please follow this link to confirm your new device:

     

 
om=221334665755&faithful&approve=defend&effect&started=accounts> images.jpg

 

Ignoring our request, may result in account closure and therefore you are
required to register the new device.

 

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you,

PayPal Support

[cdmull73]

Notice of changes to the ΡayΡaΙ User Agreement

Hello Dear,

We're constantly working to make ΡayΡaΙ safer, simpler and more convenient for our customers. 
This means that from time to time we have to make changes to the terms of our User Agreement. 
To make sure you are always informed we have posted recent updαts on our website.

What do I need to do?

• Click here into a new browser window, go to ‘Legal Agreements’ at the bottom of the page and then click ‘Policy updαte’.
• Please read the Policy Udat carefully. It contains important legal information about when and how the changes to our User Agreement will become effective.
• If you agree to the changes, you don’t need to do anything as any udats will automatically come into effect. If you do not wish to accept the changes, we’ve also provided you with the steps you can take on the Policy updαte page.

Please note that the current User Agreement will apply until these changes take effect. 

Yours sincerely,
ΡayΡaΙ

[Seymour-]

As you can see, the supposed PayPal link actually goes to phonelife.fr, NOT PayPal.  This a common scammer attempt to get you to click on their link.

NEVER click on a link like this in an email!

Instead, go directly to PayPal's site by typing www.paypal.com in your web browser's address (URL) window and pressing enter.

Then, login to your account. Here you can check for the 'Policy Changes' they spoke about. I can almost guarantee their won't be any related to anything they were speaking about. Although, some of them are fairly smart and time their scam email campaigns with actual PayPal policy updates. This tends to add some more credibility to their scams. But, a scam is a scam is a scam.

They add the panic element "OMG, my PayPal account is going to be restricted! I need it!!" to try to get you to act hastily and click the link. Logging in directly thwarts this scam.

[ezio]

Please beware of this person from this email id is juansant2270 at yahoo email , he wants the item shipped overnight and send a $100 more for shipping .

I was selling the product on ebay , I was about to ship before I found out this was a phissing scam.

[Seymour-]

Sorry, I'm a little confused by your post. Did he send you an extra $100 for shipping? If so, the scam will be for you to forward some money (somehow) before he'll give you the balance of your requested purchase price. Of course, the balance owed to you will never be sent to you by the scammer and they'll walk away with whatever monies you've sent them.

For your information, a Phishing scam is one where they try to collect your personal information. Your incident doesn't sound like Phishing. However, it's does sound like an advance fee scam.

In an Advance Fee scam, the scammers objective is to get a small amount of money (from a large number of victims). Usually ranges from $40-$150.

[coldmine]

Hello,

I recently faced alot of issues with this nigerian scam.At first i was happy to sell my item which was Omega De ville watch costing more than 4000usd .In the beginning i had no clue as it was a scam, but after i shipped the item using DHL and not recieving the payment i became furious and asked the buyer where the payment was,she assured me it will arrive now,than again i recived the same bogus mail stating that i will receive my payment after 3 days of comfirmation.I was like ok ,after just 3 hours of making shipment called dhl and told them to return my item back .Thank God i dint send it ,the women kept calling me i cursed her so much she stopped mailing for  now ,recieved same type of email yesterday simply ignored it .

[Emmies_mommie]

Hey All!

My Dad recently put his Harley Davidson up on Ebay to sell. The first person that bid on it gave him a sob story about how she was a Military person on a boat that was out in the middle of the ocean somewhere. She was getting the bike as a gift for her husband, and if my dad could just send the money to ship it to her shipper, then she would reimburse him the money when she put it in the paypal account. I warned my dad again and agian to becareful of scams. So after he went online and read up on people who pretend they are military people and can't do anything themselves...it was a total scam, thank God my dad found out before he lost anything. I just think it is a huge shame that these people are messing things up for our Military men and women, no one will trust anyone overseas anymore becuase of all these people **bleep** everything up. I honestly do no understand how nothing can be done to these people. I also think Pay Pal needs to do more to put the word out there about theses scams. Ebay needs to do more as well. I have read too many post where people have fallen for the scam and lost either money or there items they were selling. 

I just wanted to put this up, hopefully it will help save someone else.

Do not trust anyone who trys to give you more money that what you are asking!! That is a huge sign its a scam. Or if they tell you a third party is going to do the shipping..another sign of scamming! Becareful out there guys!!!