Be VERY Careful

[ladysj]

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up and tell you to keep a close check on your credit card and debit card activities. In the past 2 days I've had these situations occour.

A $71.49 fraudulent charge on my paypal account. Which paypal shows and says they are going to refund AFTER the funds are transferred from my checking account.

Someone tried purchase something on Amazon for $879.98 showing the last 5 digits of my debit card. I received an email from on Amazon stating it was my purchase receipt. It was shipping to an address in the UK. When I contacted the seller they said "do you have kids that get on your computer". Well first off with bill to and ship to address and name not being the same that should have thrown up a BIG RED FlAG. When you receive it you can send it back to us for a refund. HELLO how can I send it back when it's not even being sent to my address.

Fortunately my bank didn't process it. I was checking my checking account balance this morning and there is another $309.60 debited from my account that I did not authorize.

I am so angry and PI*SED off right now I can't see straight. So evidently there's some thing going on where people are accessing my information and quite frequently in the past 2 days.

Now I've got to get a new debit card and go through the process of disputing this with my bank and the wait of getting my money posted back to my account.

Needless to say I am very gun shy now about making purchases online anymore.

[Trae]

I had the same thing happen to me several years ago. I noticed three odd charges on my online banking, each for $1 with weird names like StankFace.com. My bank said sometimes people make charges for small amounts and if they are successful in getting the money, they go back for more. Two more attempts were made, one for $500 and one for $2000. Fortunately, the bank had "hot-carded" my account so the money didn't come out. I don't know how your bank works, but with mine, I'm only liable for the first $50 of unauthorized charges. Supposedly, you should make online purchases with a regular credit card because it's easier to dispute. Hope you get everything straightened out.

[Wendy Shoofitz]

I would close all credit and checking accounts and get new ones. This is probably not the end of it. Change all passwords where you do business also, especially paypal.

Just an FYI.

[Nanasnecessities]

notify the 3 major credit agencies also, they may try to buy a car or something! They can flag your account.

Tehn when some company calls to see if they should give "you" more credit, they will tell them it is stolen and maybe (hopefully) catch them.

[Luvcandletarts2]

JMO ... I use a separate bank and account for online purchases. HTH

[sockmonkey]

I just received an email from "PayPal", subject: "msg".

I opened it and noticed that it did not address me by name. The only thing it said was "You have 1 new security message alert. Please visit the Resolution Center to resolve the problem." They provided a link to the "Resolution Center."

I couldn't help it, I clicked on the link. Sure enough, a window opened that looked just like the PayPal window with an area for you to log in. The other tabs to things like Welcome, Services, Request Money, etc. did not work--only the box for you to type your email address and password appear to work.

I closed the window and typed in PayPal.com myself and checked my account, of course there wasn't any type of alert on my account.

As always, if you get messages from PayPal, Ebay, or banks that do not address you by your name, it is a fake.

[bunkie68]

I just received an email from "PayPal", subject: "msg".

I opened it and noticed that it did not address me by name. The only thing it said was "You have 1 new security message alert. Please visit the Resolution Center to resolve the problem." They provided a link to the "Resolution Center."

I couldn't help it, I clicked on the link. Sure enough, a window opened that looked just like the PayPal window with an area for you to log in. The other tabs to things like Welcome, Services, Request Money, etc. did not work--only the box for you to type your email address and password appear to work.

I closed the window and typed in PayPal.com myself and checked my account, of course there wasn't any type of alert on my account.

As always, if you get messages from PayPal, Ebay, or banks that do not address you by your name, it is a fake.

If you get any e-mail purporting to be from Paypal or eBay and have doubts, you can forward it to spoof (at) paypal dot com or spoof (at) ebay dot com, and they'll let you know if it's legit. It's amazing how realistic some of them can look, and kind of scary.

[sockmonkey]

As the window to the resolution center was opening I got a quick flash of another website address other than Paypal that appeared in the search bar at the top of the screen.

I kept clicking the link over and over until I could get the full web address. It turns out, the site the fake page is coming from is a CHURCH in Oregon. I did a search for the church, found their street address and contacted the sheriff's dept. in that area about the matter. Since my call wasn't an emergency, they said they will have a deputy call me back, which I'm looking very forward to.

[kforbs126]

As the window to the resolution center was opening I got a quick flash of another website address other than Paypal that appeared in the search bar at the top of the screen.

I kept clicking the link over and over until I could get the full web address. It turns out, the site the fake page is coming from is a CHURCH in Oregon. I did a search for the church, found their street address and contacted the sheriff's dept. in that area about the matter. Since my call wasn't an emergency, they said they will have a deputy call me back, which I'm looking very forward to.

I work for a web hosting company and this happens a lot. Sometimes hackers hack into a site and email from there site so it might not be the church actually doing it. Phising scams are the most dangerous as most people don't realize if it's legit or not and click on the link, enter their info and bam. If the phisers, get 1 out of 10,000 people to click on their email t hey have made their money.

Your actually better off reporting it here http://www.antiphishing.org/ as the police most likely won't do anything because most likely they aren't american's doing it. antiphising.org will contact the web hosting company who will shut the website down immediately.

[ladysj]

Thank you for that link and information. I've been on the phone with my bank for most of the morning. They also tried once for $4,000.00 and then another time for another dollar amount in the thousands. I was able to get the telephone # for the order placed on amazon. I don't know that it will do me any good or if it's a good # but I'm definitely going to go that phising site.

Travelodge tells me there is nothing they can do without knowing what hotel it was for which I think is BS they should be able to pull up purchases by name, phone number of credit card and the other $151.29 was a purchase for National Express a coach travel company in the UK. I sent them an email about it we'll see if I hear anything back.

I'm going to give my bank as much information as I can find and let them handle it. I am just soooooooooo upset I've been crying all morning and thank god for great customer service people ROLMAO because I was being a little harsh with them.

Well that phising website doesn't look like it's going to do me any good. It seems to just be for email scams. I want this person caught if at all possible.

[thesoapbox]

This happened to me last year and thank God it was tax time. They ended up ordering over $1700 of stuff to be sent to 5 different countries. Harley Davidson was one of the order places and they were the worst to deal with. I told them what was going on and she basically said well, we sent out the stuff, the card was valid, good luck getting your money back cause we aren't going to refund you!

The only way I found out was when I tried to buy groceries and I couldn't then a man from a sail boat company called me because he felt the order he got was fraudulent due to the spelling of my name. I told him the spelling was correct but it was fraudulent cause I knew noone in India who needed sail boat equipment!

I canceled everything and within 2 weeks my bank had all my money back and even gave me credit for the few checks that bounced due to the money being stolen.

Now I ONLY use my green dot visa (pre-paid) to order anything online.

ANgi

[ladysj]

I never thought of purchasing a pre-paid card for purchasing. I think that's what I'm going to do from now on. I definitely don't want this happening again.

[beck180]

Ebay policy states that they will never contact you by email only through your "my account" page. Very few legitimate businesses would.

Don't ever mess with anything in your email unless you are expecting it! They are all scam, every last one of them, including those free gift card offers. Some are just trying to pad their email list, and some are much more elaborate and dangerous

I even change my email from time to time just to stay away from them...

What's worse is that it is nearly impossible to prosecute someone out of the country, they won't extradite for these type of crimes, maybe that's why there so widespread, they virtually go unpunished...It's a shame.