Wierd Emails

[Colin_S]

Recently I keep getting some 'strange' emails to my Hotmail account. My first thought were they may be virus laden but they do not get intercepted by the anti virus software. Here's todays example. WTF???

From: Work from home

Subject: Your dream job

Content: The steps were lined with a guard of honour of young Mahikari youth corps members, all dressed in their familiar green and white uniforms. This guard of honour stretched down the long row of steps and off into the distance until out of sight. Flags of all nations hung lifeless from their poles in the early morning calm. A youth corps band played marching music in the huge assembly area at the base of the steps. God and humankind had waited an eternity for this stream of people from all nations now ascending the steps of the "House of the Lord". Words could never faithfully convey the feelings in our hearts that day. The colour, the sounds and sense of awe created such intense emotions amongst the ten thousand or so members who had been chosen to attend this first true ceremony of humankind. So many people wished to participate in this historical event that after this first day's ceremony, two repeat ceremonies were performed daily for a further fourteen days.
Y. Okada, Goseigen, p. 237.
4,5 Published by Park Street Press, Rochester Vermont USA.

 

[trouville]

Me as well from ebay

Date: 13 Feb 2005 12:12:41 -0000
From: PayPal <spoof@paypal.com>
----------------------------------------------------------------
Security Center







Military Grade Encryption is Only the Start

At PayPal, we want to increase your security and comfort level with every transaction. From our Buyer and Seller Protection Policies to our Verification and Reputation systems, we'll help to keep you safe.







We have recently noticed one or more attempts to log into your PayPal account from a foreign IP address and we have reasons to believe that your account may have been hijacked by a third party without your authorization.

If you recently accessed your account while traveling, the unusual login in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if you are the rightful holder of the account, click on the link below to log into your account within the above-mentioned period.

Ive never had or used pay pal!!
I get the same from ebay asking me to log in--i bought a few items for cash,mostly turned out expensive, including a laptop paid for and not sent they even told me they still had it and the payment but told me my address dident exist!!! (i wish the tax thought that!)
Since then i get spam and spoof to that address.

 

[trouville]

And another from ebay

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:07:21 +0100 (CET)
From: <service@ebay.com>
----------------------------------------------------------------
You have received this email because we have strong reason to believe that your eBay account had been recently compromised. In order to prevent any fraudulent activity from occurring we are required to open an investigation into this matter. To speed up this process, you are required to verify your eBay account by following the link below.
https://signin.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=&siteid=0
Please Note: If your account informations are not updated within the next 72 hours, then we will assume this account is fraudulent and will be suspended. We apologize for this inconvenience, but the purpose of this verification is to ensure that your eBay account has not been fraudulently used and to combat fraud.
We appreciate your support and understanding, as we work together to keep eBay a safe place to trade.
Thank you for your attention on this serious matter. We apologize for any delay in resolving this situation.
Regards,
Morris Franklin
eBay SafeHarbor
Investigations Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail as this is only a notification. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
eBay treats your personal information with the utmost care, and our Privacy Policy is designed to protect you and your information.


Copyright © 2004 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
eBay and the eBay logo are trademarks of eBay Inc.
eBay is located at 2145 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125.

Many others want me to log in as well,they have to be spoofs as i haven used ebay since september 2003 then i sent by post details of the laptop not sent,and which arrive in bits with the hard disc missing etc at least i got it!!After that ebay wanted to see a full copy of my bank accont!! even though i had writen confirmation from the company that they had received payment!!They wanted many things and it already cost me 7 euros for the first "letter" at least i then got somthing.

Try to contact then its not worth the trouble-they only interest them selves in big clients-im just one of very many that got a bad deal and spam and spoof!!!
If anyone hear runs ebay then id gladl send copies of the regular spoofs i havent deleated any!

 

[milltech]

Standard spoof fraud, do not respond

 

[silvertop]

I second that.
If you want any verification go through the normal channels.

DO NOT. repeat. do not use the short cut within the email.

You may well live to regret it if you do. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[trouville]

Ive many many of them hears another

Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:03:22 +0300
From: "PayPal " <service@paypal.com>
----------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Paypal valued member,

Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the paypal
account we have issued this warning message.

It has come to our attention that your account information needs
to be updated due to inactive members, frauds and spoof reports.
If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew
your records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.
However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension
This notification expires on December 20, 2005.

Once you have updated your account records your paypal account
service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

Please follow the link below and login to your account
and renew your account information

Click here to Update your account

Sincerely,
Paypal customer department!

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the "Help" link in the footer of any page.
To receive email notifications in plain text instead of HTML, update your preferences here.


This one says "paypal" you notice the other even said "spoof" i expect its the Nigerians again just incompetent and lawless. I certainly wont open them but why dosent ebay care??
Just out of interest what might happen if you click on that link????I could imagin Mr not so interested, replying, as ebay is just another form of gambling.And those that use it can become addicted.
Another annoying thing with ebay,it that when you do a google search for say "ssb radio" there are dozens that lead back to ebay and wait quite some time,even if they dont have anything that corrisponds.
If i had realised how bad the spam would have been i would have made another email account just for ebay.

 

[Colin_S]

I 'think' those emails may well be genuine as a lot of people have had there ebay accounts hijacked. The link seems genuine but I would always log in via ebay's home page to be on the safe side.

 

[Guest]

A lot are looking for valid addresses

A lot of them are looking for valid addresses to spoof from, to spam etc.

There are also the messages that lead via various questions and further e-mails to reveal security numbers etc.

There are those that will ask a fee to start a processing of your information ---- of course fee is what they want !!

As regards E-Bay etc. - carefully look at address that it comes from - not the typed one in the mail .... you will often find that it is very close to real one but NOT quite .... The Bank one is a prime example ......

If you enter the e-bay site and ask about the mails - they will clearly point you to their declaration that they never ask you to disclose personal info like that ....

Final point - use of Mail washing prog's that return spam etc. with a spoof 'Address unknown' is actually not as good as it first appears .... the act of return is enough to trigger that it has reached an address and it will then expand to the full blown spam job that was planned - what you should do is use the Junk facility in your e-mail system if available or just delete without any message going back to originator ...

 

[Moose]

I emailed the same thing to e-bay's spoof email dept. and was told that it was a spoof and to not reply. Since reporting it I have not recieved any of the usual spoof e-bay emails I get.

 

[l'escargot]

[ QUOTE ]
I 'think' those emails may well be genuine as a lot of people have had there ebay accounts hijacked. The link seems genuine but I would always log in via ebay's home page to be on the safe side.

[/ QUOTE ]


NOT genuine - the usual giveaway is that they are addressed to "Dear (Company Name) Customer". Ebay, Paypal and most companies will begin the e mail with your name. Ebay and Paypal have security information available on their sites.

The people who have had their accounts hijacked are the ones who respond to these e mails!

These are not targeted and not in any way connected to your contact with ebay etc, they are pure spam sent out by the thousand. 99% of them go to people who have had no contact whatsoever with the companies that they purport to be from - that is why those companies can do nothing about them.

 

[Colin_S]

The reasons I 'think' trouville's emails may be genuine includes the ebay link, which takes you to an ebay site (and not a look alike with a non ebay url). Also the paypal email from spoof@paypal which trouville suggests indicates it's false is a genuine paypal dept. This copied from their site "Report it. Forward the entire email - including the header information - or the site's URL to spoof@paypal.com We investigate every spoof reported. Please note that the automatic response you get from us may not address you by name." Note the last sentence.
Whilst he may not have ever opened a paypal account, someone who hijacked his ebay account probably did.

I have received a couple of emails supposedly from ebay in the past. When I've clicked on the link they take you to a site that looks like ebay but the giveaway is the url in the address bar - last one was a yahoo site IIRC.

If it were me receiving those emails I would reply to ebay and paypal but manually type their email address in the mail and not just hit the reply button. Even though trouville is not actively using ebay he can, at least help stop another scammer.

 

[Cornishman]

What about all those e-mails from strange people you have never heard of saying they are relatives of the late ??? who left millions of dollars/pounds/ etc in his will and they want you to handle the money for them through your bank a/c?
Or the one I had earlier this week telling me I had won £3 million and to claim it I had to pay £5,000 into some strange bank that I had never heard of.
What do they think we are?

 

[l'escargot]

[ QUOTE ]
... We investigate every spoof reported. Please note that the automatic response you get from us may not address you by name." Note the last sentence....


[/ QUOTE ]

Also note the phrase "automatic response" and this is for reports made to the "spoof" address only - it does not apply to unsolicited e mails asking to update details.

If you still believe this one to be genuine I suggest that Trouville forwards it to spoof@paypal - I bet you they confirm that it is not authentic.

 

[oldharry]

Ebay say they will never give a link in their Emails, and say you should always respond by your usual link, and in a new window. It is therefore highly unlikely that they will actually send a genuine email with a link for your account in it.

I recently received a threatening Email from the Bank - my account is about to be frozen, etc, legal action pending if not responded to... Being a UK citizen i do not have any American bank accounts /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

If you think Ebay (or any other online accopunt holding website) are genuinely trying to contact you, they will never object to your verifying the communication by responding independently.

Responding to spoof Emails is very dangerous: if you enter account names and passwords they immediately become available to the spoofer. Often they open your PC to being hacked, and various nasties such as keyloggers being installed which will transmit every keystroke you make to the hacker - in the hope that sooner or later you will divulge account info such as your Credit card number and security code. Identity theft can be cripplingly expensive, so dont risk it.

 

[Colin_S]

Having read trouville's email more thoroughly, you are correct in that they all refer to direct links to a login area which I too would avoid so you are probably correct that they are spoofs. The ebay one does seem to lead to an ebay site (url - not pictures) - or am I missing something???

 

[Benbow]

This is spoof. There is no question.

These people send a million emails at random, if 10% of the recipients have paypal accounts and 1% of these are daft enough to respond they have 1,000 account details.

I have received some really nicely done attempts. The url appears to be genuine, but is not (right click on it and copy the link, paste it into a text editor and see). Many take you to a nicely presented page with links to the GENUINE bank's page. So it can be quite hard for the unitiated to see what is happening.

(Personally, I always make an effort to waste their time by going to the page and entering rubbish. If more people did this they would not be gaining any useful information. However, if you do this, please remove the associated data from the link (something like '?listname=garbage2345') by editing the link before sending, so that they learn nothing about the value of their email lists. Only takes afew seconds and I feel it is your cybercivic duty!)

 

[l'escargot]

There are two ways to get your log in information. Either set up a false site and gather the information directly when you input it, or install a keylogger on your computer and gather the information from your computer when you have logged in to a genuine site (just because a link is genuine, it doesn't mean the e mail that has sent you there is). This could fall into the latter category.

Many of these attacks are multilayered - spyware is circulated under one guise in the hope some computers will become vulnerable. Then e mails of this nature are circulated in the hope that some will be responded to by people with compromised computers.

ebay and Paypal are particularly popular at the moment, previously Citibank and Abbey National (among others) have been targeted.

In response to this, a number of companies are now setting up there own "messaging" service that can only be accessed by registered users. They use this system and not e mail to communicate security concerns to you. ebay have done this in the last few weeks.

 

[milltech]

ABSOLUTELY NOT GENUINE. Never respond. If eBay want to say something to you they can do it via your log in, and they would never ask you to respond except by loggin into your account first. I don't KNOW this but I'm sure it is so. ALL these posts a fraud whether puporting to be your bank, eBay or any other organisation you deal with. Mostly you will be mailed in the name of almost any bank here or the USA on the basis that you might have an account and might be silly enough to give them the info so they can clear your account.

 

[milltech]

Re: A lot are looking for valid addresses

[ QUOTE ]
Final point - use of Mail washing prog's that return spam etc. with a spoof 'Address unknown' is actually not as good as it first appears .... the act of return is enough to trigger that it has reached an address and it will then expand to the full blown spam job that was planned - what you should do is use the Junk facility in your e-mail system if available or just delete without any message going back to originator ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point. I use "Mailwasher" and I use the delete and blacklist function, but not the "bounce" function.

 

[Benbow]

[ QUOTE ]
..... Never respond.......

[/ QUOTE ]

I am quite serious that I think we should all respond, with care, with rubbish. If most of their responses were of this type they would cease to operate.

Go-on, bait a spammer today.