Phishing e-mails

[Phil Hocking]

I have just received an e-mail supposedly from PayPal, asking for account details. It is quite convincingly worded but it's a fake. I suspect that the criminals have harvested the e-mail addresses from this site or maybe one other. If you get the e-mail please ignore it or forward it to spoof@paypal.co.uk

This is the second such e-mail I have received in a week, the other being from 'the Halifax/Bank of Scotland'. Up to now I have had very little in the way of suspicious e-mails. Please be careful.

Phil in Somerset, UK

[Bill]

Hi Phil

Always worth a heads up every now and then, I get these beeping things on a daily basis for various banks and paypal, then there are the one's for pharmicuticals, pre-aproved loans for 200,000 dollars, stock investments etc etc. Believe or not between my various e-mail accounts I can get up to 60 a day.

[Phil Hocking]

Hi Bill

Sounds like I've been lucky so far. Still, it's worth putting out a warning to others like me who are new to this sort of thing. It used to be easier to spot them because they were full of spelling mistakes or bad grammar, but there are some more literate crims out there now.

Phil

[Roy]

Unfortunately Phil you only have to put your name into a search engine and this site has provided your e-mail address to anyone in the world without even having to know this site exists. Try it, I got 8 entries for you.

[Guest]

I get a dozen spam mails a day since all since joining the phorum, the reason is simple the site is open to none members so search engines find it as well as any visitor.

I did offer the use of a more secure forum but there was no interest. I am thinking of dropping out because of this pathetic security.

[Dirk Everaerd]

My spam-filter put everything in a spam box and weekly I have to delete it with a content of apr. 100 spammessages! If there is one who comes with the normal mail I have to report it to G-mail spam-report! No problems anymore.

[Tina]

Hi all

I only get the mails for the moderators but some of them are quite convincing when you read them but when I noticed they were addressed to the mods I realised they were spoofs.

[Julie]

Like Bill I have several accounts which all suffer from spam to various degrees. One is only three a day. Another is 50 a day. I often get these sort of mortgage and bank things, and some which are... er... not fitting for a lady's mailbox. :o

Spam is inevitable... and the only way to get away from it temporarily, is to get a new email address and tell everyone the new one. I've done this lots of times. Just save or print your old addresses and any emails you want to keep (or forward it to the new one) and still check the old one for another few weeks to make sure you don't miss any emails from someone who forgot your new address.

An efficient free one is toodlepip.com email.. I still get some spam but it goes to a bulk folder, NOT your inbox. If you get a bulk mailing that you want, you can tell the filter that this particular source is not spam, so it goes to your inbox in future.

Hotmail is good at filtering, but you can't send attachments, filter wanted emails into their own mailboxes as they arrive, set up an auto-reply when you're away etc., unless you pay for it.

[Süleyman]

Hi Phil,
I have received a pishing mail about paypal just like yours recently. I've changed my passwords and observed my accounts for several days and informed paypal about the situation. It is very dangerous. We must be on attention.