The phony invoice scam is a common scam popular with scammers because it is quite effective. It starts when you receive an email that purports to be from a popular company with which many of us do business that indicates that you owe them a significant payment. The scammers count on people being concerned that they are being wrongfully charged for a product they did not order. You are provided a telephone number to call if you dispute the bill. If you call the number, you will be prompted to provide personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft. Here is a copy of the phony invoice presently being circulated.
This email appears to come from PayPal. As always, the purpose of a phishing email is to lure you into clicking on links contained within the email or providing personal information, in this case by phone if you call to dispute the phony bill . If you click on links in phishing emails, you end up downloading malware and if you provide the requested information, it ends up being used to make you a victim of identity theft. This particular phishing email provides a phone number to call if you wish to dispute the obviously phony invoice. If you call the number in the phishing email you will be asked for personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft.
There are a number of red flags that indicate that this is a scam. Your name does not appear anywhere in the invoice. Only your email address appears in the phony invoice. Also, the email was sent from an email address that appears to have nothing to do with PayPal, but is most likely the email address of someone whose email account was hacked and used to send out these scam emails..
Here is a copy of the invoice being circulated.
PayPal |
Transaction ID:9485BNMK362500M |
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Hello , You sent a payment of $799.99 to Coinbase Inc. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account
Issues with this transaction? For More Information Call us:- (888) 288-8175 Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and click Help in the top right corner of any PayPal page or please contact us toll free at (888) 288-8175. From, PayPal 2211 North First Street (888) 288-8175 |
TIPS
Once, I received a large invoice from a company with which I do business for goods I did not order, but rather than click on the link provided in the email, I went directly to the company’s website to question the invoice. When the website came up, the first thing I saw was a large announcement that the invoice was a scam and that many people had received these phony invoices. If you ever receive a phony invoice such as this and you think that it may possibly be true, don’t click on links or call phone numbers provided in the email. Rather contact the real company directly at a phone number or website that you know is legitimate where you can confirm that the phishing invoice was a scam.
Never click on links or download attachments in emails or text messages unless you have absolutely confirmed that they are legitimate and don’t call companies at telephone numbers that appear in the email such as this one. Instead, if the email appears to come from a legitimate company, you can call them at a telephone number you confirm is legitimate . Don’t call the number that appears in the email. In the case of PayPal, the real telephone number to call for customer service is 888-221-1161. You can also contact PayPal customer service through this link https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/contact-us
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