beware of password scams

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 [email protected].

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.

Comments

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  1. Whenever I get an email asking to enter/update info, I’m automatically suspicious and will investigate the link I’m being sent to in order to verify it’s real. In my mind, that’s the big — making sure you’re at an authentic site and not something close.

    Comment by Cameron on December 23, 2003 @ 8:43 am
  2. Good to know.

    Comment by carlene on December 23, 2003 @ 9:44 am
  3. found your blog through memigo

    Comment by Steven on December 26, 2003 @ 10:54 pm
  4. The scammers are still at it, this time using a vulnerability in IE to trick people into thinking they’re really at paypal.com.

    Comment by dan on December 29, 2003 @ 8:48 am
  5. That’s evil, but I think I would have caught it. However, I think many would easily fall prey.

    Comment by Cameron on December 29, 2003 @ 10:22 am
  6. The question at Ask Yahoo the other day was how do I report e-mail scams with some useful links in the answer.

    Comment by dan on July 2, 2004 @ 1:54 pm

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