(This tip was suggested by Mary who wrote: “I received an email that others my also be receiving and thought you may consider including a warning in the newsletter.
The email appeared to be from PayPal. The salutation even had my correct name–not Dear Customer or similar. At the bottom was a place indicating I received the notice because I had opted to receive emails from PayPal. There was a link to click to unsubscribe. It really looked quite authentic.
It was stating that my credit card information needed to be updated. I knew this was not so, but I did go to the legitimate PayPal site to verify my account information. I did report the incident to PayPal and did forward the email to them.
These crooks are getting more clever in disguising their emails. As I said, this one did look quite authentic. The email address given was, on a quick look, the same as the PayPal email. So, all the more reason to never click email links, but to go to site—bank, PayPal, etc.–yourself. Sorry about the length of this note. Mary”
It’s so important these days to keep your name out of your email addresses.
Let’s say your name is Frank K. Brown. Don’t make an email address like frankbrown@whatever.com or fkbrown@whatever.com — because if you do it doesn’t take a smart crook to address the email to :
Dear F K Brown or Dear Frank Brown.
If you choose an email like silverfoxx@whatever.com, watch what happens:
Dear Silver Foxx.
Do you see what we mean. You don’t have a bank account or a PayPal account under the name Silver Flowers but you may have one using Frank K. Brown or F. K. Brown.
This simple tip can help you quickly identify fraudulent emails with out looking beyond the email’s greeting. And of course, Mary is right that another good tip off to a fraudulent email is the ubiquitous “Dear Valued Customer” or “Dear Customer”.
Mary had her name as part of her email address and this is how the crooks made that PayPal email look so authentic.
Do yourself a favor… create an email address (HotMail, Yahoo, Gmail, Gmx, your ISP account) using something different than your name or part of your name — then change your email address with any online stores or financial / bank accounts to the one you created. If you have an email account like TuquoiseBay22@whatever.com and the phishers are really smart, the next phishing email will be esay to spot:
Dear Turquoise Bay (or Dear Valued Customer, if they’re not so bright) and any fraudulent emails puporting to be from a site where money changes hands – will be very easy to spot.
Do not ever use your name or parts of your name as your email address when creating an email address. And if you already have, make a new email account without your name or part of your name and change all your account with banks, PayPal, online stock brokerages, and online shopping accounts to your new address. It will make fraudulent emails easier to spot and therefore you’ll be less likely to be fooled.
Thanks for your question Mary, this tip should help many more easily spot fraudulent emails.
Many thanks Mary and cloud 8 for the warning.
Juel
Thanks for the tip. However, it wont be easy to change everything. I finally got a gmail and what did they use for my address???My first AND last name!Haven’t used it.
I have got smarter for Face Book and used my maiden name along with my second name, but as you can see, above, my regular email address is my name. Should I change it? I’ve been fortunate, so far, using that address…and wont open anything that is unknown to me without going thru the ‘details’ back door.
They suggest ideas — they don’t force you to use their suggestions.
Suggestions do not equal mandatory. We have at least a dozen gmail addresses for various things we do — and Gmail only suggests it never chooses a name for you.
My message disapeared?
When I signed up for gmail, they gave me this email address, I had no choice. So my name is my email. I would love to change it. When I signed up for gmail, it was in the beginning days, I am sure they do not do this anymore! So tell me, how do I change this?
Gmail does not give you an email address — it makes suggestions based on your name. You can make up any address you want so long as it is not being used by someone else.
Hi, I’ve seen this type of phishing for several years. I wrote to Pay Pal to tell them about it and they told me that they had a place to report this type of phishing and to send them the email in it’s entirety so that they could follow the URL addresses. It’s been so many years since I last had an email like this so I think they said URL. These crooks keep the security people hopping as they use route these things through so many computer and jump around the world, before they can track it to the actual source.
Yes, PayPal users are really being targeted by Crooks and Scamers. I have had at least 6 Emails of late SUPPOSEDLY from PayPal saying “your account details need up dating” some have gone as far as to say ” If you don’t update your account details, you may not be able to use your PayPal account” (!!??) You are strongly advised to forward any such Email to spoof@paypal.com.au (If you are in Australia)I contacted PayPal and ask their advice about this issue and they told me to forward any & all such Emails to them and then delete them, and not to open them or NEVER EVER CLICK ON ANY LINKS IN SUCH EMAILS.They also confirmed that they WOULD NOT SEND AN EMAIL TO YOU ASKING YOU TO CLICK ON LINKS INCLUDED IN AN EMAIL. ALWAYS,always log into any of your accounts by going to the appropriate website and logging in as you normally would. I use MailWasher from Fire Trust and never ever download the majority of Emails I receive which was the case with these SPOOF Emails. With MailWasher, when I get a suspicious Email I simply click on “Show Email Details” and that shows the “From” line the “Reply To” line and the “Return Path” line, etc, and you can usually tell that the Email has not come from where it supposedly came from. Please do be careful with suspicious Emails and do not panic when you get one, just simply delete it, or forward it as appropriate and then delete it
This is only partly true. Paypal like Bank of America and many other financial institutions are targets of phishers because of the millions of account holders. You make it sound like it is only PayPal and that it’s PayPal’s fault – neither are true.
Bank of America, Western Union, Chase, Wells Fargo and dozens and dozens of banks and other financial institutions are targets of phishing.
There are two other options available for detecting phishing emails, and the one I like most is this. I have multiple emails (yeah, after 30+ years, cautious paranoia takes its toll). I use one email ONLY for my serious business, and another for my public forums (like this one), and yet another for close friends. so, when I get one to my casual friends email address about some bank problem, I know right away it is bogus.
Gmail has an interesting option available (which Iought to use more but do not). [ And I forget the actual process) . . but gMail lets users insert a modifier into the users normal email address, like if your gmail address were “NormalIs@gmail.com, if you just bought something at EssexMuseum, you can tell them your email is “NormalIs+EssexMuseum@gmail.com”. Then if you begin getting rogue emails to the Normal+EssexMuseum you know it came from them, or alleged to be from them.
Someone mentioned being targetted because they have a PayPal or CitiBank account. About half of the phishing emails I get are alleged to be from financial companies with whom I have no business contact at all!! These guys are sending out 100 millions messages to find 100 who have an account and are non-cautious enough to reply.
Robert
This is a most excellent article, worthy of sharing. So I did. On Facebook. Who knows? This may be the perfect timing to get through to someone before they too are victims.
Such a VERY good article. I have been super cautious with my e-mails but I still use my original one which I SHOULD NOT!!!
Thanks for the timely reminder—that I must change my email address.
Hy, received an email from PayPal last week asking for my new credit card number??? I deleted same but should have written PayPal about this. Will do for sure. Thanks for a great article.