email Scams

[grygry]

These type of scams have been around almost as long as the accounts they purge, in attempts to trick people out of their money

 

Most pretend to be from a reputable bank or building society, using the scare factor of "URGENT Your bank account has been closed" or some other message 

They also warn that "Immediate action is required" to reinforce the scare factor and then provide a FALSE link that you should NEVER follow

If the bank mention happens to be one you use online, go to it through the official site to login there

 

Another scam widely  use is those supposedly from PayPal, theses along the the bank ones appear to be from PayPal and no doubt take you an equally convincing website

But with these FAKE email they only address the reader as "Customer" whereas PayPal on the rare times they send email will address by surname

 

Amazon look-a-like is now being used to scam people,sending reports, "someone has attempted to use your email to make a purchase" on like this was sent to my daughter who does Not have a Amount account

 

All of these email need to be put into spam as Phishing

 

[dswival]

I got a "receipt for payment" email from a non-paypal email account with a paypal-looking receipt inside a week ago. At the bottom is a place to log in to your paypal account. If you get it - don't log in through the link! They are getting login information that way. I reported it to paypal and it is in their system but there isn't really anything they can do to stop this. Pay attention and protect yourself!

[captkirk]

I forward the emails that suppose to come from PayPal to: spoof@paypal.com

[ajay_dce]

in india too sometimes spam mails come pretendinG to be from tax dept or RBI hence duping innocents

[aditya]

Distress mails..... (Scams)

People usually a girl says her father or parents were killed in political rivalry. She has fled the country 6 years back. Her father had a big account in one of the banks. Now the political situation has normalised and she needs help to recover that money and invest it properly so she is looking for a trust worthy person.

[rpsmith]

When you see these scam emails or any official looking email, it is always better to do this to ensure your account security. Open another tab and log in through the main site. DO NOT go through the link in the email! I have seen these emails in the past. No so many now as I did some time ago. It can be very difficult to detect a scam link as the thieves have gotten better about disguising them. Site like Paypal have a section on how to detect scam sites/links. BUT, they also make the same suggestion I made above.

 

As for the "distress emails". I would make it a point to read up on how these things work. The one thing that is common with most of them is this: they will start asking you for "fees" to set up some sort of balony for the account funds to be transferred. The fees usually go up in cost. Another aspect of this is that, even if the account funds ARE transferred (usually a few thousand or so to start) the "sender" can accuse FRAUD and get the money back plus penalties which you, the victim, pay.

 

As for the latter, you can also wind up in BIG trouble with the bank and FTC. It's called the Nigerian 419 scam.