Scam Emails From Paypal?

A recent occurrence of suspicious e-mails have surfaced that indicate a payment has been made, from a individual's PayPal account, to an account with which the individual is not familiar with. The e-mails appear to be an authentic receipt from PayPal, but are actually nothing more than scammers trying to fool you into giving out information. Let me point out that PayPal will never send an e-mail to your e-mail address, under any circumstances. They will direct you to their secure website to make any payment you might be interested in. You can visit their site, and read their statements in order to become fully aware of their policies.

Ahh, the old "I didn't enter any contest" defense. Well, I didn't actually; I sold stuff over the Internet for a company that was participating in one at the time. But, to answer your question, no, I did not buy anything. I checked my account on the broadcast site and saw the $10,000 discrepancy. They quickly refunded the money and I thought that was that done.

But no. Every time I tried to log in to my PayPal account, it would let me down. Trying to login with my user name and password resulted in being redirected to the trial version of their sign up kit. This version required a credit card number and password and would offer to erase the $10,000. While I really didn't enter any contests, I did sign up for their free service.

They Blocked My PayPal Account

This procedure, of redirecting me to their sign up kit, lasted for about three days. During that time, I was able to login, change my password and check the transactions on my account. I noticed that all the transactions were from companies that were participating in their program.

The first company I checked out was Ultimate Anonymity. From the information they gave me, I knew they specialized in anonymity. Their service was free but it required a subscription. Which I quickly did, because I was desperate to hide my PayPal account number.

After I had checked out my situation, I was shocked to see that the credit card statements did not back up. They had charged up to $5000 on my account. That was news to me. Normally, I normally only saw $5000 on my statement.

I did a search on PayPal for these kind of reports and found that many other people had experienced the same thing from Ultimate Anonymity. This company is definitely not reputable. Furthermore, why would a company spend any money on a useless program that only wastes your time?

How Did This Happen?

The emails were hitting my inbox, enough to make anyone anxious to start making money on the Internet. These phishing emails are designed to look exactly like the company they are attempting to copy. They include local and national news stories that will have you more cautious than usual.

The truth is, the truth is that this kind of spoofing is easy to do and very little effort is needed to perpetuate it. Credit card companies, Hollywood and music industry folks really did send out checks that were fraudulent. Corporate America is absolutely falling for this scam.

Ultimate Anonymity stated that they had recently been targeted by a complex and sophisticated vishing attack, which allowed them to recover from the fraudulent transactions they had been receiving.

They reported that approximately $250,000 in unauthorized payments were charged to their business checking account.

According to the HIPAA Act, non-disclosure agreements that are fraudulent under the guise of medical information are punishable by up to five year in prison.

On top of everything else they had to do to make sure their client's data was protected, they had to notify the 400 clients that their account information may have been compromised. Most of these clients were very happy when they found out that their information was not compromised. They, like everyone else, were shocked that their credit card information had been stolen. Credit card companies rarely inform consumers of the risk involved in having a credit card with a large balance. Most people, with a few exceptions, vast majority of whom do not read the fine print, sign up for a website that had been set up to steal their information.

Ultimate Anonymity's service is not recommended for people who have first hand knowledge of their financial transactions. If you are not personally involved in a financial transaction, you should consider sending your data via a secure server or through some other means that are not so easily accessible.

I found an article that has some tips that offer some tips and advice.:

You can read the article belowhttp://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/21/phishing.sc/index.html

If you are so inclined, you may reprint this article free of charge aslong as the bylines are included.