When I worked for AOL, I was astounded how many people fell for the fraud e-mails asking for their screenname and password.
Some of them were so poorly done, the spelling was wrong! And people still fell for it. Unfortunately, the thieves have gotten smarter over the years. Here's an e-mail I received today. I was suspicious immediately because that's the kind of person I am, but I found the tells of fraud soon enough.
Return-path: <880014q9@waid.com> Envelope-to: (my e-mail address) Delivery-date: Wed, 05 Mar 2003 12:42:12 -0500 Received: from 217-126-232-228.uc.nombres.ttd.es ([217.126.232.228] helo=217.126.232.228) by kai.katai.org with smtp (Exim 3.36 #1) id 18qcuW-0002sG-00 for (my e-mail address); Wed, 05 Mar 2003 12:42:11 -0500 Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2003 13:53:35 -0600 From: info@paypal.com To: (my e-mail address) Subject: Your PayPal account is Limited. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Message-ID: 235574@paypal.comPayPal
Dear PayPal Customer PayPal is currently performing regular maintenance of our security measures. Your account has been randomly selected for this maintenance, and placed on Limited Access status. Protecting the security of your PayPal account is our primary concern, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
To restore your account to its regular status, you must confirm your email address by logging in to your PayPal account using the form below:
This notification expires March 31, 2003
Thanks for using PayPal!This PayPal notification was sent to your mailbox. Your PayPal account is set up to receive the PayPal Periodical newsletter and product updates when you create your account. To modify your notification preferences and unsubscribe, go to https://www.paypal.com/PREFS-NOTI and log in to your account. Changes to your preferences may take several days to be reflected in our mailings. Replies to this email will not be processed.
If you previously asked to be excluded from Providian product offerings and solicitations, they apologize for this e-mail. Every effort was made to ensure that you were excluded from this e-mail. If you do not wish to receive promotional e-mail from Providian, go to http://removeme.providian.com/.
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This is not real, it is a fraud attempt. The dead giveaways? Click Here to open a window that examines the source of this mail.
