Fake Paypal site

[Paul Slocum]

I can't believe that took so long. I filed a report with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, but I'm not sure if it did any good. Thanks to everyone for helping get it shut down.

 

-Paul

[Junie]

I recently got a e-mail from a bogus "PayPal" website as well. As PayPal says if the link doesn't start with https it isn't a valid PayPal link (It even says it in the e-mail the dumbies send to me).

 

Anyway I e-mailed PayPal as the message claimed "Your account has been placed on a restricted status", which PayPal told me they do not have such a thing and thanked me for reporting it.

 

Anyway the link was/is http://www.paypal.com/wf/f=ra. I'm not sure if PayPal fixed this problem, apperently some hacked their site or something.

 

Well the link now redirects to https://www.paypal.com... so it may have been fixed by PayPal.

 

Seems like people are out to steal whatever they can, which is PayPal accounts lately it seems.

 

Here is the actual e-mail I received to the bogus site --

 

quote:

---

From: ""

 

Subject: Notification of PayPal Account Restriction

 

Dear User,

 

PayPal is constantly working to increase security for

all of our users. To ensure the integrity of our payment

network, we conduct frequent checks on our system.

 

Your account has been placed on a restricted status, pending

further review. Restricted accounts are limited in their

ability to send or withdraw funds.

 

If you have questions concerning this restriction, please

contact us using the link below:

http://www.paypal.com/wf/f=ra

 

 

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

 

Sincerely,

 

The PayPal Account Review Department

 

Note: When you login to your PayPal account, be sure that the website's URL always begins with "https://www.paypal.com/".

The "s" in "https" at the beginning of the URL means you are logging into a secure page. If the URL does not begin with

https, you are not on a PayPal page.

---

[Philflound]

Guess what Junie, I think this is a legit paypal site. It has the https:// in the front. And it brought up my user id when I clicked on it. Thought I didn't try it out, you might actually have a problem with paypal. Unless these people tried to do a link before this.

 

Phil

[CincYnoTi]

junie,

 

that looks like a legit email from paypal. safest thing is to go to www.paypal.com and login to your account from their main login page https://www.paypal.com

send them an email from one of their "contact us" links and ask about the status of your account. if someone uses a bad credit card to pay you, that can get your account messed up. if you have a personal account (as opposed to a business account), too much activity can also get your account flagged. just contact them and ask what's up.

[Junie]

Yeah I know, the link now goes to a https site link, as mentioned apprently PayPal took care of the problem.

 

I did contact them when I received the e-mail as the e-mail sender was blank, it was sent to my old e-mail (No PayPal e-mail goes to it as I updated my details), and I never heard of "restricted status". PayPal told me that it was a fake setup attempting to get usernames and passwords, and that there is no such thing as "restricted status" at PayPal.

 

My guess is that someone gained access to the site and created the dummy page. The PayPal e-mail from when I contacted them didn't specify exactly what was the problem, execpt it was someone trying to gain access to passwords.

 

Here is the reply I got from PayPal about the bogus e-mail --

quote:

---

Thank you for contacting PayPal. We apologize for the delay in responding

to your service request.

 

You have received a scam email by someone trying to ferret out your

password and other information. We commend your suspicion and alertness in

reporting this incident.

 

The information provided is an absolute lie.

 

Just to be on the safe side, you may wish to change your password and

secret questions.

 

And please always bear in mind:

Note: When you login to your PayPal account, be sure that the websites URL

always begins with https://www.paypal.com/. The s in https at the

beginning of the URL means you are logging into a secure page. If the URL

does not begin with https, you are not on a PayPal page.

 

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

 

Sincerely,

PayPal Investigations-Omaha

---

[The Piper]

Holy shmokes!!!!!!!!!!!! I am sooo lucky.I have been selling some stuff on Ebay,and thought I might get higher bids if I accept paypal.I went to the paypal site,this one I think,because I got a windows message about the security certificate.I dont know much about the stuff,I spend lots of time online,and I put this pc together myself,but only too play UNREAL,or do a few other things,I dont open many web pages at all,and am not an experienced web surfer, but thank God for once I "listened" to the message,and decided to sign up to accept Ebay payments instead.Phew!!This Atariage site kicks butt,

I like all your attitudes,and even more,your actions against this stuff.It helps protect people like myself who really dont know any better,and I for one appreciate it.Keep up the great work!

[Philflound]

That's what we're here for. Seems like most of us will stick together in times of a crisis. None of us like to be scammed. Always a drawback.

 

One thing is that I got an email from paypal saying to log into this one page if I needed to report a fraudulant website. Thing is, it wasn't a secure site. So I didn't do it. Oh, well.

 

Phil