Here is another good example of a phishing email that is presently being circulated. It was sent to me by a Scamicide reader who received it. It makes for compelling reading, but it is a scam. Phishing emails, by which scammers and identity thieves attempt to lure you into either clicking on links contained within the email which will download malware or providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft, are nothing new. They are a staple of identity thieves and scammers and with good reason because they work. As always, they lure you by making it appear that there is an emergency that requires your immediate attention or else dire consequences will occur. Copied below is a new phishing email presently being sent to unsuspecting people that appears to come from PayPal. It contains a PayPal logo, but that is easy to counterfeit. A telltale sign that this is a phishing email is that the email address of the sender was one that has nothing to do with PayPal and was most likely part of a botnet of computers infected by scammers and then used to send out the phishing email in a way that is not readily traceable back to the scammer.
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| PayPal Email ID PP843, |
| You sent a payment of 894.99 USD to xxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com |
| We’ve asked the seller to ship. |
| Thanks for using PayPal. To view the transaction details, log in to your PayPal account. |
| If this wasn’t you, Please call us immediately at 1-844-858-2217 report this incident and block this transaction |
| It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in the Recent Activity list in your Account Overview. |
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| Description | Unit price | Qty | Amount |
| Apple iPhone 12 – 64 GB – Black (Unlocked) Item number 43ccd867ea |
874.99 USD | 1 | 874.99 USD |
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Shipping and handling Insurance – not offered Total |
20.00 USD — 894.99 USD |
TIPS
Legitimate emails from a company with which you do business would include the last four digits of your account and include your name. This email had neither. Obviously, if you are not a PayPal customer, you will recognize immediately that this is a scam. As with most phishing emails, they lure you into clicking on a link or calling on the phone by attempting to trick you into believing there is an emergency that you must deal with.
As with all phishing emails, two things can happen if you click on the link provided or call the number provided to dispute the charge. Either you will be sent to a legitimate looking, but phony webpage where you will be prompted to input personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft or, even worse, merely by clicking on the link, you will download malware such as keystroke logging malware that will steal all of your personal information from your computer and use it to make you a victim of identity theft. If you receive an email like this and think it may possibly be legitimate, merely call PayPal, your bank or other institution from which the email purports to originate at a telephone number that you know is accurate and you will be able to confirm that it is a scam. The phone number in the email is not the phone number of PayPal which is 402-935-7733.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
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