I just got scammed...

saturnin said:
I have never heard of paypal holding funds till the shipment is deliverd. Paypal either transfers or withdraws funds.
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Well they do, do this. PayPal has this recently (within the year?) added feature to protect buyers. It says you received it, but you can't do anything with it other than see that its on "Hold."
If I remember correctly, it doesn't release until the buyer leaves feedback.
 
Paypal, scammers, and ebay aside ... CONGRATS on getting that back in time, man! That has the potential to ruin someones month.
 
Hawk Teflon said:
Paypal, scammers, and ebay aside ... CONGRATS on getting that back in time, man! That has the potential to ruin someones month.
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I think what would ruin their month is if I sent him an email saying that somebody has to sign for it. Then, show up with a 2X4. :grin:
 
GottaBeTheJuice said:
This would be a great short! What do you think?
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that was the very first thing I was thinking of as I was reading. Actually I thought he was going to fool us and say at the end that it was just a story to see what we thought!

Cassius said:
I just want to add some information here.

The email address displayed by your email reader is contained in the headers. The data in the headers includes from, subject, to, path, x-type, IP address and a few other things. If you send emails from a script or program that allows you to specify origin, you can set the 'from' field to absolutely anything. This way your actual email server is not necessary for sending. The IP address contains this information, but generally isn't read. If you turn on extended header view in your email you may be able to see resolved IP addresses. If they're resolved to DNS you should see the name 'paypal' somewhere in it.

More important than the 'from' address is the 'reply to' address, which is usually displayed even with short headers. If that's not at paypal.com you have a problem. It wouldn't matter in this case, since you didn't need to reply with anything.
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everyone needs to get more familiar with stuff like this.
This is why i have never been scammed, because you can read "From" and it can say anything, but when you look at the details you can clearly see that the email is not who they are saying it's from.

I can create a new email address today on Gmail with a user id of 321whathouse@gmail.com but enter the name "paypal" in the name field, and when you receive it all your going to see is the masked name of "paypal"



Rick Meyer said:
I think what would ruin their month is if I sent him an email saying that somebody has to sign for it. Then, show up with a 2X4. :grin:
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LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll be right behind you with the camera!
 
Rick - go to the Paypal website and log in.

How do I change my password?


Question : Answer : If you know your current password, you can change it from your PayPal account profile page. Here's how:



  1. Log in to your PayPal account.
  2. Click My Account at the top of the page.
  3. Click Profile at the top of the page.
  4. Click the Password link in the Account Information column.
  5. Select Password.
  6. Click Edit. You may be required to confirm your account information.
  7. Enter your current password.
  8. Enter your new password.
  9. Click Save.
On top of the page you'll see the "help" link. That's where you'll find this information.
 
Whenever you receive an e-mail from paypal or your bank or your credit card company, just move your mouse over the link they want you to click (in the e-mail). Down in the status bar it will show you the actual link. Usually the links are masked (same as the "from" e-mail addresses). If the status bar shows an odd looking address then you've got yourself a scammer. Most legitimate e-mails will just tell you to visit their homepage and login to access your account.

A lot of e-mails will try to get you to reveal your ID and password by telling you to click a link to login to your account. But it's actually a fake page that gathers your data so they can access your account and make withdraws.

Bad people suck.

Rick - I'm really glad the scammer won't get their prize. It's worth the shipping fee just to know your equipment isn't in the hands of scum.
 
PK Gillock said:
Rick - I'm really glad the scammer won't get their prize. It's worth the shipping fee just to know your equipment isn't in the hands of scum.
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Lol. Scum is a good word. Hey, I'd be lying if I said I was completely over it. I still think about that P-p-p-power book prank and how they got even. I'm looking at my clock (it's 9am here) and its probably 8am there. He thinks he's getting my DVX by noon. Gives me 4 hours to come up with something.




Though, I'll probably just let it go...:huh:
 
There's some good information here. Especially about email scams. Unfortunately, since I do this kind of thing for a living, I see a LOT of it. Believe me, this Paypal stuff is very unsophisticated compared to a lot of the stuff I see. I had to sit down with our security people last month over one that supposed came from a state agency. It was so good, that it fooled our security team (and most have been doing this kind of thing for years). Even the names and titles of the people in the message were correct, and showed the correct email addresses.

There were a couple of tip offs but the smoking gun in these is *ALWAYS* going to be the information in the email headers. At least for 3rd party scams. Your email application should have a way to view all the headers. And when you do that, you can see the email servers that your email passed through. Look at 10 or so legit emails and you'll start to see a pattern. When you look at a scammers email headers, you will see that the email originates from somewhere different than the REAL source. This cannot be faked.

The email servers I manage get hit with over 4 million bogus emails per month. It's my job to make sure that they don't reach my clients. Trust me, I see a LOT of this garbage.
 
PerroneFord said:
you will see that the email originates from somewhere different than the REAL source. This cannot be faked.
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While this is generally true, there is a way in *theory* to fake the real source, albiet with great great difficulty, diffinately beyond the means of 99.9% of scammers...

Anhar
 
Anhar Miah said:
While this is generally true, there is a way in *theory* to fake the real source, albiet with great great difficulty, diffinately beyond the means of 99.9% of scammers...

Anhar
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So is this just in *theory* and never truly accomplished or possible for .1% of scammers?
 
Rick Meyer said:
So is this just in *theory* and never truly accomplished or possible for .1% of scammers?
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Well I don't know if any one has done it, but its how I would if I had to do it.

So to answer; I don't know!

The reason I mentioned 0.1% is because there might just be some scammers who will go that far...


Anhar
 
Anhar Miah said:
While this is generally true, there is a way in *theory* to fake the real source, albiet with great great difficulty, diffinately beyond the means of 99.9% of scammers...

Anhar
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Yea, rewriting headers is possible, but in all likelihood not going to happen at the level of people trying to scam for a few hundred bucks. Even if they do re-write headers, they are still going to have to send you somewhere other than the real site to get what they want. So due diligence is the best answer.
 
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