Large Scale Central

Sign of our economic times

General Discussion
#1

Lately, I have been inundated with phishing emails pretending to be from both eBay and PayPal. I have forwarded all emails to both eBay and PayPal at their ‘spoof@’ email address and each time they respond stating that they are closing down the fake email sites. The eBay spoofs are coming from my PayPal email address, as I have not used that email address for eBay purchases for around four years. I recently made several PayPal payments, both for eBay sales and a hobby store sale.

How secure is the PayPal site when criminals are able to access my email payment address? I have been forwarding email phishing info to both eBay and PayPal for years and yet nothing seems to come of it. The recent emails are all addressed to the same web server return address. With billions in sales each year, even eBay does not have the inclination/strength to shut down these phishing sites. The emails are obviously fake and I would never send anyone my personal information, but, unfortunately, we all know that a percentage of our population still invest in Nigerian scams, so someone must be responding to these emails to make it worthwhile for the criminals.

#2

Tim,

I have stopped using both E-Bay and PayPal for just that reason. Some fool wants me to verify my credit card number. How lame is that? And it comes with PayPal official logos, copied from somewhere.

They had better do something about this, or both will be out of business.

#3

Paypal and eBay work fine. Phishing scams have always been around…

My mailwashers do a good job on Spam and junk. Besides you just don’t connect to a website from an email sent to you. That’s not hard.

And Paypal/eBay can’t stop Phishing scams - it’s like trying to stop people from talking at a Bears and Packers football game…

#4
Steve Featherkile said:
...They had better do something about this, or both will be out of business.
I wouldn't take any bets on that...doubt either company is going anywhere soon. Picked up an LGB 30 and 90 degree crossing for $18.95, that was for both, including shipping! Of course at that price they did not come with the original box. :) An LGB "Route of the Beavers" went tonight for a few bucks over $20 (wish I'd bid on that!).

Don’t let the scammers keep you from some really good deals! Stay on the home sites of both companies and you’re safe.

#5

It doesn’t have anything to do with the security of Paypal. The scammers don’t need access to your Paypal account to get your email address – and if they did have access to your account, they wouldn’t be trying to con you into giving them your account info.

The most that Ebay and Paypal can do is (maybe) get the phisher’s ISP to yank their account, and the guy simply starts over with a new account under a different name. Nowadays, the smarter ones use a trojan or virus to trick some other poor sap’s computer into sending the emails, making it even harder to track the original scammer.

#6
Quote:
Don't let the scammers keep you from some really good deals! Stay on the home sites of both companies and you're safe..
Yep - I just got 2 Gigs of memory for a notebook for less than $60.00. It was more expensive everywhere else. So many brick & Morter stores sell through eBay now...as do RR hobby stores.
#7

It’s not a matter of “accessing” your payment e-mail address. I get 'em, too, and I’m not on PayPal (or bank with any number of banks who claim to be “updating their records.”) Just ignore them and keep using ebay.

Later,

K

#8

So, how do these bozos know every time I’ve used PayPal?

#9

Steve,
while others may get phishing emails from other sources, I use my PayPal email only when making purchases. My eBay ‘buying’ email address is different to my PayPal address and yet when I make a payment I get phishing emails to my PayPal address and eBay emails to an eBay account not used in years. The information for the phishers is coming from the PayPal site.

     Simply spamming or junking the phishing emails is counterproductive,  although considering the number of times I have forwarded phishing emails to both eBay and PayPal,  I do wonder as to any good I may be doing by informing them of the phishing emails.  They do assure me that they are doing their best to close the offending sites.


      While few would be silly enough to respond to the emails,  there are obviously enough of us who do respond to make it worthwhile for the scammers.  Both eBay and PayPal are never going to reveal statistics as to the number of sites closed down,  as it would reveal just how vulnerable their security really is.