Today I received, for the second time in 2 days, a fake email from "Paypal" saying that my "account will be suspended" due to an infraction that took place in June of 2005. The email reads as follows:

Now ordinarily, this would be a pretty horrifying thing to receive in your email inbox. Most Paypal users would be startled by the allegations and would quickly click the links provided and log in to resolve the issue. Well, before you react to anything, I want you to examine this email closely.

Much like Spiderman's "spidey sense", something should strike you as odd when you receive an email like this. As soon as I received it the first time, I read the first couple of sentences and knew I was dealing with a moron. Seeing as I haven't used my Paypal account in months, maybe a year or so, I knew the allegation was bogus. Hovering over the link they provided only confirmed my gutt feeling. For all of you "not so savvy" internet users out there, I want you to step into my mind for a moment and see what I see. First, here is the email as I received it in Outlook Express, notice I received 2 notices within a matter of days.

Click Image to Enlarge.

I love how the first email they sent was marked with a red exclamation, i.e. urgent! In any case, there it is. Now, the image below has 2 red arrows. The first arrow is where I hovered over the link "Click here to activate your account". The second arrow at the bottom is the website that I'll be directed to once I click on the link. Notice that the website has nothing to do with Paypal?

Click Image to Enlarge.

Needless to say that it doesnt add up. The website link is to sinonet.org, not paypal.com, as we expected. This should be a dead give-away that the email is a fake. My rule of thumb is not to even bother clicking the link to see what the site is about, because who knows what other tricks they have in store once you load up their site. There could be a virus waiting for you, spyware, adware, you name it. At this point, just delete the email.

But wait, there's more! Observe the next, and final image. There are many red arrows in this picture, but its very easy to follow. I've pointed out 2 links within the email, one that says "For assistance, log in..." and the other that says "... update your preferences here". If you hover over either of these links with your mouse, you'll see that it leads to the website that the red arrow at the very bottom lists, "https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/....". Notice the https:// in front of the link? Ordinarily, website links only require http:// as the beginning entry, https is a special link that indicates a secure connection. Explaining that is an article in itself, but as it relates to this topic, this is a real address to Paypal that, again, tries to fool you into thinking that this is an actual email from Paypal. Dont let this throw you off your guard.

Click Image to Enlarge.

So in short, a simple but eye opening email that reminds you to think twice before reacting to certain emails. Scams are getting a lot more sophisticated and for those that are very gullable, these things can really throw you for a loop. If anyone fell for this scam, the person(s) behind it would have access to your Paypal login information and then use it to make online purchases or just take as much money from your credit card as they could. Whether or not they can be caught, I dont know, but it is a very real problem to deal with. So keep your guard up and dont let this happen to you or anyone you know.

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