Today I received one of the most authentic looking fraudulent emails to date. This email, known as a phishing email, is not from who it reports to be – in this case PayPal. It is from someone pretending to be PayPal, hoping I will click on it, go to their fake website (the best fake I have seen to date), and put in my user name and password. Doing so gives them my account information, which they use to log into the real site and rip me off.
Large, reputable companies like major banks, eBay, PayPal and Amazon never send out emails asking you to update your account like this. Instead, they wait until you go directly to their site and log in; then you will be prompted to take action if necessary. As a double check, look at the address line or URL of the website you are visiting. Make sure it starts out with “www.paypal.com” or “www.ebay.com” If it looks like the one from this good-looking imitation sight, do not log in. Close your browser right away (run away)! Then, open a new browser and type the website’s address in yourself.
On Monday, USA Today reported that Phishing scans have quadrupled over thelast year. I can attest to this; I am amazed at the increase I have seen – just in the past month. Next to this PayPal fake, I even received one purporting to be from the IRS. When you start receiving emails from the IRS asking you to log into your account, you know something is wrong.
Please be smart and safe – please watch out for these emails and make sure you know what website you areon before entering any personal information.
It does seem that as the chance for profit goes up, the Phishers are getting more and more sophisticated. I’m guessing someone thinks that the possibility of wiping out your bank account is worth the time to scrape some pages and really make things look slick.