Posted by Eric B. on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 at 9:44AM :
In Reply to: OT PayPal question posted by Ken See on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 at 9:23AM :
If you get an unexpected E-mail from PayPal, E-bay, your bank, etc NEVER follow the link.
Log into PayPal, etc the way you always do, via bookmark or by typing paypal.com into your browser window.
If there is anything that you need to deal with there should be an alert for you as you log in.
I have never seen a legit E-mail from PayPal with a link grayed out so you can not check it.
If you can see the link, check it VERY carefully, as the last one I got was something like http://www.paypal.com.lc4.info/ as you can see it looks ok until you notice the DOT after paypal.com.
PayPal will send you E-mails from time to time that have links in them, but they should either take you to pages of information, without the need to log in, or they will be https://www.paypal.com/ note the httpS the S is important. Also the / after paypal.com.
If you are currently doing some sort of password change, or some other updating to an account you may get an E-mail with a link from one of these companies that you have to click on to prove that you got the E-mail at the address you gave.
This will only happen if you start the process, so if you are not expecting an E-mail like that, log into the companies website and double check on things.
The Phishing E-mails are getting better and better, soon they make look exactly the same as a real E-mail from the various companies. As it is they are very close, and only careful inspection shows that they are missing some small detail that a real E-mail has.
Be CAREFUL! Think before you click, and question everything.
Your security on the web is just as important as your security in the real world.
The costs of giving out your info to a scammer can be high in terms of frustration, and financial responsibility.
Good Luck!
Eric