Examples of Suspected Fraud/Fake Emails

[PayPal_Adrian]

Hello everyone!

One of the greatest strengths consumers possess against fraud and phishing is education and collaboration.  To help support your safety online, I'm going to open this special thread up for you.  Here, you can post examples of what you believe to be attempts by individuals to defraud you or others of their hard earned valuables and money. 

Before we begin, a few housekeeping points:

• We will be using this as a "master thread," so if we find an example in other areas of the boards, we may merge the post into this one.

• For everyone's safety, please remove any last names or contact information (including email addresses) from your examples.  In many instances, the names provided by fraudsters are fake or may actually be the name of someone they already defrauded. 

• On that same note, please don't ever attempt to confront a fraudster or attempt to track them down.  Instead, turn the information you do have over to your local authorities. 

• Please also remove any links from your posts, as these could potentially go to spoofed or phishing websites.

Other than that, we only ask that you keep it productive and stay within the Forum Decorum and posting guidelines.  I'll be stopping in on a regular basis to clean house and comment on posts, so don't be surprised if you see my mug - or another moderator - stopping in to say hello! 

With that said, I'm going to start moving posts in, so you might see some older examples mixed in with the new posts.  I hope this thread becomes a great resource for everyone!

Stay safe,

Adrian

[Anonymous_User]

Per what you posted - you may want to forget this deal - too many red flags.

The best way to protect yourself when selling an item is for you to send an invoice to the buyer, they pay, you get the money, you ship the item.  If you provide the buyer with your email address so they can send you a payment, you're setting yourself up for a possible scam.

[Brit111]

Hi everyone, I just received the following text message this morning - the sender was listed as 'refund' : "PayPal Alert : You've just sent $150 to (email address which i couldn't include because it's not permitted in community) Transaction ID :19G7741T90421A . To cancel the payment go to : paypal-alert.com" Is this a fake text message/has anyone else received this?

[ALA03]

Before I ship something out, can someone tell me if this is legit? I have removed my name as well as the name of the Buyer.  I have never used paypal before to receive payment. I received an email from <removed> saying I've got funds from the person and as soon as I send tracking, the money will be sent to me. 

 The email also shows <removed> from a gmail account.

[Anonymous_User]

If you want to know if an email is a fake, you may want to do the the following:

* Forward the entire email to:    spoof@paypal.com.
* Do not alter the subject line or forward the message as an attachment.
* Delete the suspicious email from your inbox.
* Never click on any links within the email or open any attachments.

Look at the email address domain and wording in the email, grammar, salutation, spelling, etc.  If any of these are questionable, it's most likely a spoof.

[Allie-d1962]

I have received an email from PayPal regarding a payment to kkwfragramnce for £116.74 it is transaction number  9HS243201H9869826 I'm assuming this is a spam email I have marked it as so

[JD480]

I’ve also had this e-mail with the same transaction ID! The e-mail looks genuine but didn’t want to click resolution incase it wasn’t!

[fernfire]

I've had the same email, for the identical amount, and have assumed it's a phishing email. I've tried to forward it to spoof@paypal.co.uk but my server will no longer send emails to that address, weirdly - does anyone know of another way to send suspect emails to PayPal?

[Anonymous_User]

Try this one:   spoof@paypal.com

[fernfire]

Thanks - the .com address worked.

[Chloe221]

Hi guys we were trying to sell a cooker and the women sent money though PayPal but they wouldn't release the money until we done a transfer to western union and we only had two hours to do it but we didn't notice then we got an email from <removed> is this right?