Phishing

[Lilith]

In the past month I have had emails that look very official from eBay, PayPal and now BankofAmerica show up in my box. None of them are real despite the email addy containing the names of those companies. I immediately contact the company they are using to phish and I get their fraud reporting email address and forward them the email.

The only way we will stop this practice is if we all start being vigilant about reporting this illegal activity. Never click a link and put in your information. Never.

I now return you to your normal perving program.

[alspals69]

i wish i had your energy!!!
not just this, but the many many good examples you seem to set me!!

[dicksbro]

I've had the same (or similar) thing, Lil. Without opening the emails, we called the credit card company and gave them the information. Then deleted the emails.

[musicman]

if you scroll your mouse over the links and look at the bottom of your browser window (at least in Explorer) it will show you the link attached to the email and it's never actually legitimate....so then I just delete....

just another quick warning for those of us not as diligent as Lil...

[FussyPucker]

Phishing is one of the fastest growing "cyber crimes" there are a few simple thins you can do and look at that will stop you being caught out.

1. If you get an email to confirm any of your personal details with a bank or other company ignore it or as Lil says pass the details onto the company being abused.

2. Never follow a link from an email if you need to log on to internet banking or ebay or a paypal account then go straight to their website from your browser then you know you are going to the correct place.

3. Most of the emails appear to be text based but you will find all the text is actually a picture embedded into the email, this prevents it being stopped by spam filters. Now depending on your email client if you hover over the picture it may show you the URL it's pointing to and it will rarely, if ever, be what it's pretending to be. The next time I get one of these type of emails I'll post it somewhere so you can see what I mean.

4. If you're lucky like me then you can customise your email address for each company you give it to. For example my bank have a different email to say eBay...... I can use [email protected] and only my bank has been given that address or I have [email protected]. Now if I get an email that says it's from m bank but it's been sent to [email protected] I know it's not really from them and I can ignore/delete/report it.

Just be careful and you'll never get caught out! If you're in any doubt speak to the company in question before taking any action. They'd much rather that than have to pay out compensation and spend loads on anti fraud measures.

I Want the good old days abck when the internet was just used for porn and all the spam emails was advertising porn! :D:D

Finaly smooches to sexy Lilith for bringing this to everyone.

[Lilith]

Thanks for smooches!

I just know that in the past people here have given out their info to unsafe links. It seemed like a good time for a reminder. This is how identity theft occurs. You give them the info. Walking down the street if some dude came up to you and said, "I'm from eBay, I need your loggin and password so I can reactivate your frozen account" you would not even consider it. Be as vigilant online.

[osuche]

Had a lot of it lately too. :)

Thanks for the reminder

[Booger]

If i can get some one to steals my identity will my creditors start chasing them?

[FussyPucker]

Not long after posting on here look what dropped into my mailbox!
The email appeared to be some text (the attached picture). Hovering over the picture gave the following url:-
barclays.co.uk.brccontrol.taskstart.holmak.biz/detailsconfirm
Not one a bank would really use!
And not the one in the text of the email.........although you'll note it's fairly similar unless you're watching carefully it could be mistaken for the real url!

But here's a funny thing, earlier I said they use pictures to get the information passed spam filters (They would read the test and block it but can't read the text in a picture). Well....some filters can be set to ignore emails that simply contain a single picture file. So to get around that the email writers add some text to the bottom of the email but change it's colour to white so that you can't read it.....here's what was at the bottom of this email

"Why am I so hungry? descendent cognizant Summoning all of his courage, he reached for the doorknob and turned it.

"That I asked him if he'd like to take along a cold Pepsi from the fridge because it was such a hot day. Might he not have a chance? If you pay it before they close the town offices this afternoon, no lien. "She started for the stairs. His mouth was always dry. He tried and heard the squeal of axe against bone, the soft flump as the match in her hand lit the Bernz-O-matiC. Sometimes he thought it would be worth being back with Annie just to have the dope. audiotape"

Just some harmless text to get passed the filters. so that's something else to look for in these emails!!

[wyndhy]

that text is way screwy. :roflmao:

[scotzoidman]

Haven't gotten many lately, but for a while it seemed that the same *(%$#^( would hit me 2 or 3 times a day with the same phishmails...the bank phishers were generally ignored & deleted, since they never were from my actual bank, but the ones (supposedly) from Ebay & Paypal are always forwarded to the proper authorities, I have the fraud addys stored in my address book...sometimes I wondered if they really do "investigate all reported abuses" like they claim, since I'd get the same stuff over & over again, but eventually it seems they shut the worst of the worst down...thanks for the remind anyway Lil...

[FussyPucker]

I came across a handy website that anyone worried about Phishing might want to take a look at:

http://news.netcraft.com/

There is a downloadable IE toolbar that will protect against most of these things. Personally I'm not a fan of any toolars but I'll leave you to decide :)