Yahoo Mail has been displaying a warning about password scams recently, and although the scams I mention below have passed, there are always more coming down the line.

There have already been news articles about the paypal scam but I wanted to echo the words of caution. I received two official-looking e-mails that I might have responded to if I hadn’t read about them on the news. I forwarded the e-mails to the Internet Fraud Center and fraud.org and received an automated response from the Fraud Center. I don’t know if any of my efforts will help them catch the thieves, but I feel better knowing I’ve done something.

On eBay they have a page about fraudulent e-mails and instruct you to send the e-mail to spoof@ebay.com.

On paypal.com there is a page where you can send them the offending e-mail.

There are other, lesser-known targets too. Best Buy customers had a customized scam created just for them, and PC World has list of even more. It’s too bad that you have to be so suspicious to stay safe, but there’s little alternative.

Remember, if a web site wants you to login to their site, they should direct you to their site. You should never fill out sensitive information in an e-mail.