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Fraudulent emails!!!!!


tj
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Hi

I dont think it hurts to repeat warnings about fraudulent emails.

The most common, are ones which ask you to update your payment details, credit card info etc. It is quite easy to determine where the email originated from, but needs some knowledge of being able to understand email headers. The crooks cannot completely hide their identity but you need to know where to look.

For those that are unable to do that, then one simple rule will prevent you being caught out, never!! ever!! click the link in the email, even if it looks ok. If you think you might actually need to update any sensitive information, type the usual web address in your browser, the one you would normally use when you login to use the service, like online banking etc, the system will soon tell you if it needs any updating from you.

I was prompted by more emails today, where they are trying to harvest credit card details, be on the lookout for emails pretending to be from:

Skype

Paypal

Royal Bank of Scotland

Barkleys

Ebay

and others generally related to money transactions.

 

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I recently opened a Paypal account which I no longer use as immediately after using it for the first time I had to have a new credit card as it was thought but not proved that someone had had access to it, though I don't know for sure if it was because of Paypal.

Since then I am now getting several emails a day from Paypal, driving me mad !

 

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sorry Ernie Y, blocking email addresses should work for sites you dont want email from, I agree,

but the wider problem is that these emails pretend to be from sites we actually use, so blocking them doesnt help, since it will also block legitimate mail.

Spam filters are also not much good, they also block wanted mail, unfortunately the only way is to create a filter list of addresses you definitely want to allow, and the rest should be filtered to another mail folder so you can go through them later.

There is no easy answer without compromising your own expected mail.

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Yes, if they are coming from Paypal it is [;-)]

I know the title of the thread is Fraudulent emails but it seemed to me from reading Christines message that it was a genuine attempt by Paypal to get her card details verified because she had changed it but her second response does now suggest otherwise.

Did you perhaps click on one of the emails I wonder Christine ? If you did unfortunately it's just confirmed to the scum spammers that they have touched a live email address and will likely now generate even more spam !

If you do block Paypal then you will know for sure that anything else which comes in must be fraudulent.

A tip when you do get these phishing emails and if you are in any doubt: if you hover your mouse over the "Click here to give me unfettered access to your bank account" button than down in the bottom left of the status bar of your browser (IE) you will see the actual web site which it goes to.

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[quote user="Christine Animal"]They all go in "traiter comme indésirable".[/quote]That's interesting. Unless you have deliberately filtered them I wouldn't have thought that a genuine Paypal email would get flagged as "indésirable.

Two scenarios now occur to me.

1. As improbable as it sounds it's conceivable that whoever compromised your card is now targetting you in an effort to get further information.

2. The thing with your card and these emails are are a bizarre coincidence and not connected at all.

My money has to be on 2 because I'm hard pressed to see any logical or plausible explaination as to how they can be connected.

I think the first email you got was bogus and random but having responded to it you've unfortunately opened the flood gates [:(]

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A genuine e-mail from PayPal will always have your name in the Subject line, a scam one will not (at least until the spammers get extremely clever).

It's a good idea to get one of the e-mail filtering programs, Mailwasher is a good one, which will allow you to see the content, and source, of messages before they get downloaded to your computer.

 

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When you receive emails which are obviously a "Phising" attack (Spammers trying to persaude you to part with personal/banking data), if you don't open the email but place the cursor over the mail and right click, a drop down menu opens.

Select "Properties".

Next open the option "Details".

The sender's email root address will appear prefaced by the comment "Reply To".

Left click and highlight the email address. press Control "C".

Then paste this into the "Blocked" senders box.

The only problem is that scammers don't normally use the same mail relay and proxy mail servers again as they flit around the cyberworld keeping one jump ahead of the web police!

Fairly obviously, spammers and scammers cannot highjack the genuine organisation's mail server and thus create a similar name to try and fool you.

Thus blocking the spoof address will not prevent genuine mail getting through.

 

 

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I have two online bank accounts.  Both ask to be passed details of any such e-mails and have a special mailbox to send them too.  To my mind, reporting them (not responding to them) is also important, as the banks themselves have much better resources for coping with these b*ggers more effectively.

A quicker way to do what Gluey suggests is to highlight the message in the list in Outlook Express (if that's what you use, of course), click on Messages in the toolbar, then click "Block sender".

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Being quite deeply involved in the web and software businesses, JE I would agree in principle.

Excepting when this started (Phising), I notified Barclays: and the anodyne response I received (simply an automated message written by someone who couldn't wite clear English!), was a big turn off.

Clearly, the threat wasn't being taken seriously.

I know from my own involvements, that major banks have not taken fraud seriously: credit card operators for example simply write off losses and raise their fees as necessary.......................

Financial institutions (not my most favourite people) have been rather cavalier about security since data processing came into the mainstream.

Mainly, they didn't foresee the problems and dangers that the informed industry was vainly trying to tell them about: and wouldn't spend sufficient cash to beef up their internal security systems.

Perhaps the best one was the guy who asked for a meeting with his investment bank's CEO. At this meeting he casually in formed the guy that he had embezzled £10 million of the bank's funds!

After the CEO had calmed down a tad, the worker ( IT support) then stated that he would hand back half of the dosh for immunity from prosecution and his acceptance of  non-disclosure to the media; plus his advice on how to close the security loophole!

The bank accepted.

And this is one of the core problems: industry sources (Computer Weekly at al) calculate that security losses by UK financial institutions from cybercrime now exceed £1 billion: the banks etc hush up this reality to avoid their depositors and customers voting with their feet..................................

 

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[quote user="Gluestick"]

if you don't open the email but place the cursor over the mail and right click, a drop down menu opens.

Select "Properties".

Next open the option "Details".

The sender's email root address will appear prefaced by the comment "Reply To".

Left click and highlight the email address. press Control "C".

Then paste this into the "Blocked" senders box.

The only problem is that scammers don't normally use the same mail relay and proxy mail servers again as they flit around the cyberworld keeping one jump ahead of the web police!

 

[/quote]

 

I agree in principle with that, only email programs dont all work the same way, and I'm sure most people are using the one that comes with the pc, most often Outlook Express?

Apart from filter lists, which are not foolproof and always leave you with the feeling somethings in there that I want, so you look anyway.

One way is to just download the headers from the server, simply a one line per message list, which tells you, senders name, subject, time and date sent, and size. Listed like this they are quick and easy to go through, select the ones you want and delete the rest while they are still on the server.

This is an important point, since it is possible for them to know quite simply that you have actually downloaded and opened the message on your PC.

Or for those with their own server, like myself, turn off the email address for a week that really confuses them:) and to be serious does stop junk email for a time, but gradually it creeps back. Also you can specify to accept mail only if your name is in the " to " line, which of course with junk mail it rarely is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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TJ - Whilst you're looking at the list of mails which you descibe, in Outlook Express, you can use the method described above to add obviously fraudulent mails to your blocked senders list. That is, highlight the message header (don't open it), click Messages, then click Block Sender.  This deletes all messages from that sender, and blocks them for the future at the same time.
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Agree tj: though many users are pretty baffled by the concept of knowing their email alias, the name of the mail server and etc!

An easy way is to go to (e.g.) www.mail2web.com  and using your username and password, check the mails at the server level and delete all the spam!

I have found MS's Hotmail is now pretty good at detecting spam. I use my Hotmail account for anything liable to add itself to self-propogating mailer lists!

My personal email account has thankfully remained reasonably free of spam now. Three changes it took however!

My practice site and dedicated mailserver still generated considerable volumes of spam: not at the moment as the host went belly up and the site is being re-written (long overdue) and a new host is taking over the domain name residence: eventually!

Still, keeps us all busy!

 

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[quote user="cooperlola"]TJ - Whilst you're looking at the list of mails which you descibe, in Outlook Express, you can use the method described above to add obviously fraudulent mails to your blocked senders list. That is, highlight the message header (don't open it), click Messages, then click Block Sender.  This deletes all messages from that sender, and blocks them for the future at the same time.[/quote]

But the list your looking at, has already downloaded the messages, they are actually in your PC which is what you are trying to avoid.

Also, if right click to block sender, the from line contains a spoof Paypal.com, then you block the real ones aswell, minefield isnt it !

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It is fact that the email addresses that receive the most spam, spoof, fradulent emails, are those that appear on the web, where yo may have visited and you were asked to give your email address.

Just for interests sake, search your own email address...in google.

then try searching *@yahoo.com for example, you will be surprised, and a little program can harvest all those addresses into a neat little list and hey presto we have created a spam mailing list.

If you need to enter your email on a website then try writing it "human readable" for example "tjatyahoodotcom" the harvesting programs are confused by this.

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[quote user="tj"]

[quote user="cooperlola"]TJ - Whilst you're looking at the list of mails which you descibe, in Outlook Express, you can use the method described above to add obviously fraudulent mails to your blocked senders list. That is, highlight the message header (don't open it), click Messages, then click Block Sender.  This deletes all messages from that sender, and blocks them for the future at the same time.[/quote]

But the list your looking at, has already downloaded the messages, they are actually in your PC which is what you are trying to avoid.

Also, if right click to block sender, the from line contains a spoof Paypal.com, then you block the real ones aswell, minefield isnt it !

[/quote]So, can you run past me again, how you just download the list you speak of, tj?  The list I look at has the info you describe only, but is obviously not what you're getting at.  Sorry to appear dense![8-)]
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[quote user="cooperlola"][quote user="tj"]

[quote user="cooperlola"].[/quote]

But the list your looking at, has already downloaded the messages, they are actually in your PC which is what you are trying to avoid.

Also, if right click to block sender, the from line contains a spoof Paypal.com, then you block the real ones aswell, minefield isnt it !

[/quote]So, can you run past me again, how you just download the list you speak of, tj?  The list I look at has the info you describe only, but is obviously not what you're getting at.  Sorry to appear dense![8-)][/quote]

 

I am assuming your using Outlook Express, and you cannot do it I dont think, I use Pegasus Mail, it is an extremely capable email program and allows the user many more advanced options, downloading just the "headers" for example.

You could always download it and give it a try,   http://www.pmail.com/v441.htm 

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[quote user="NormanH"]I am getting spam emails from MY OWN address!
I hope they aren't also being sent to other people as if they came from me...
How do I deal with this?
[/quote]

Its unlikely they sent the whole list quoting you as the "from" address, since your name is mid range alphabetically the from address is more likely to be earlier alphabetically.

The reason they send mail to you like that, is that when you see your own name your more inclined to open it, and the way to stop it, is to block emails from yourself.

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