How To Identify Authentic Emails

The five things wrong with the email from yesterday's post are as follows.

1) The email was addressed to:    To: undisclosed-recipients:;

2) The email said, "Dear PayPal Customer,"

3) No Logo

4) They asked me to click on a link which was not www.paypal.com

5) There was no small print at the bottom of the email telling me to not respond to this automated email and that if I required further help I should go login to my account at their website. 

 

You should take a look at an actual email that PayPal really has sent you after you make a purchase and paid for a product using PayPal. You will notice that this message includes the five differences noted above that the email message as compared to the one my Mom received. 

First of all, PayPal has all of my information. They know who I am when they send me mail, even when they send out mass emails they always say, "Dear Patrick Jolley."

Secondly, the wording of the email was to induce fear among the recipients.  It was not nice, nor businesslike. 

Thirdly, the recipients.  Again, PayPal knows who I am.  They send emails to me, not to undisclosed recipients. 

Fourthly, If PayPal wants me to update personal information or billing or shipping information they will ask that I log in securely on their site and do so in the normal manner.  They will not supply a link. They will merely remind me that I can go to their website by TYPING in or COPYING in www.paypal.com.  Why typing or copying only?  Because if a link is supplied, it may say one thing but go to another place entirely. It is called the link for a reason.  Think of webpages, when it says click on News, or Careers, or Movies, or Click Here, behind all that underlined text is a web address that is not www.news.com but rather more likely to be http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032525/ if you were searching on MSNBC.com. 

Oh, and I kindly replaced the direction of the supplied link in yesterday's email to a nice article you can read from CSU to learn more about phishing.

Fifthly, and lastly, did you ever notice that Amazon, Ebay, PayPal, and your bank and whomever else contacts you almost always have the same thing on the bottom of their emails?  It is always smaller print that says, "Please do not respond to this email as it is not monitored and automatically generated or something or other."  Simply put a program automatically generates the email to let you know that your purchase was accepted and is being shipped and is being processed, etc.  You cannot talk to anyone real on the other end. If you need help or assistance you are required to log in securely on their website and go to the help menu from there. 

 

Please look at the email below and compare and contrast it to the one I sent you earlier.  This way you can spot "phishing" emails easier and be a little safer on the web. 

Also, one last thing, if you are not sure. Do not do anything.  If it is fake, it will either go away, or come back with the exact same wording or something.  Besides a closed account is better than one open to a stranger. 

Email Phishing Scams

Is This Email Real?

Just a few days ago my mother received the following email and asked me if it was real.  See if you can identify the five key points I found in identifying this email as fraud. 

Need some help.  See tomorrow's post for a real email I received and the answers to those five key points mentioned earlier.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "PayPal" <confirm@paypal.com>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:33:29 -0700
Subject: Online Banking and Bill Payment Deactivation Notice !
Dear PayPal Customer,

This is your final warning about the safety of your PayPal account.
If you do not update your billing informations your access on PayPal
features will be restricted and the user deleted. This might be due
to either following reasons:

- A recent change in your personal information (i.e. change of address)
- Submiting invalid information during the initial sign up process.
- An inability to accurately verify your selected option of payment due
 an internal error within our processors.

Please update your PayPal profile in order to restore your online
access, click the link:

http://61.19.213.82/information_center/article/. /web/Online-Service/. /Account/PayPal/webscr.php?cmd=_login-run

If your account information is not updated, your ability to use your
PayPal account will become restricted.




Thank you,
PayPal Customer Service

Email Forwarding Etiquette

A soapbox article on email forwarding etiquette.

If you must forward on emails, please strip them of all the guilt crap and 'please forward' this garbage. I find it hard to even enjoy the nuggets of wisdom when they are coated in crap. For example, if you think an email is worthy of a forward, send people the following.

First, personalize it a bit.

"I read these and they brightened my day, hope you'll enjoy them, too."

Or, just simply -

"I liked this."

Then include the message, and tone it down so it's not shouting at us. (Huge font sizes and bolded text and the USE OF ALL CAPS when writing equals shouting in the real world)

1) Give people more than they  expect and do it cheerfully.
2) Marry a man/woman you love to  talk to. As you get older, their conversational  skills will be as important as any other.
3) And so on and so on....

But if you liked it, please do not include the manipulative, guilt tripping, sob story, endings that usually accompany these.

In other words, if you noticed a nugget of gold in the message, clean off the crap and just pass us the gold. Otherwise, to some people it will seem like you are just forwarding on crap to them.

"Hi, I was thinking of you today and thought I should throw a cow pie in your face!"  :) 

Or

"Hey everybody! I got a load of horse biscuits, why don't you have some?!"  :)

Sorry, I do not mean to rant, but that email with the burning house picture and promise of good luck and "it's been around the world ten times" really kind of tipped me off the edge and made me drag out my soap box.

Craigslist Scams and Spam

Wow. I finally created an account on Craigslist.com last week so that I could sell some more stuff. You might think I am a little late to the online classifieds game - but I am not. In fact, before we moved, I used a free classifieds system from the state's largest news station. They had a slick online interface that, in my opinion, was much easier and nicer to work with than the Craigslist option.

I am big proponent of getting rid of Stuff you do not need. I have used local FreeCycle  groups and the classifieds to get rid of lots of stuff and help pay down student loans and other debts. It has been great. 

I was quite displeased when I opened up my inbox this morning and found three spam messages from my one ad that I placed on Craigslist last week. Ugh! Who wants to look at more spam and phishing emails?

How can you reduce your exposure to the unwanted stuff that ends up in your inbox?  One approach that I have always found useful, yet others seem to think is complicated and unnecessary, is to use multiple email accounts.

I have simply taken the principle of not putting all your eggs in one basket to my email. I reserve one account for family and friends, one for business or where I receive electronic statements, and another that I use for dealing with strangers via online selling, or random other sign up and registrations online.

"But then you have to sign into three different accounts!"
  Well, not exactly. See, sometimes I only have a limited time to check my email and I would rather not wade through the numerous offers for Canadian pharmacy meds, the weekly office store ads, random large sums of money waiting for me in Nigeria, and so on just to see what how my family and friends are doing. It makes it simple. Because I have not used the email address to sign up for anything my chances of spam are a lot smaller because no one has sold my address or shared it with third party merchants. This makes for a family and friends account that is fairly clean because the standard filters can screen most of the automated stuff that everybody seems to get anyways.

The next time you are trying to simplify your life - take a radical approach and go for the complicated approach.

Do you have any life hacks, or things that you do to simplify your life that may be counter-intuitive at first glance?  If so, Please share in the comments.

Internet Scams

Buying and selling a home can be a stressful event. Whether you decide to do it yourself or if you team up with a real estate broker. One way to do it yourself is to use Zillow.com. It is similar to the MLS but open and almost free. You can browse listed homes for free, you can even post your home and a "Make me move" price for free. Just this last week though, they started charging to actually list your home as "For Sale."

I used to have a listing on Zillow and was surprised by the number of Realtors that called me up wanting to list on the MLS with them. I had more activity from Realtors trying to get my business than I did of potential home buyers. However, I did have one interested buyer that I thought was just too good to pass up. I will post our email conversation below. The first message was sent through Zillow to me.

From Zillow:

RAPHAEL TUFOUR (raphael_tufour@yahoo..com) is contacting you about your home. Here is the message:
------
HELLO I AM INTERESTED IN BUYING THIS PROPERTY OUTRIGHTLY. COULD YOU PLEASE EMAIL ME TO CONFIRM IF IT IS STILL AVAILABLE IN THE MARKET FOR SALE. REGARDS, RAPHAEL TUFOUR
------
Please be aware that once you respond to RAPHAEL TUFOUR (raphael_tufour@yahoo.com), your e-mail address will no longer be anonymous to them.

Thanks for using Zillow.

Usually, I would have just junked this email right off. The indicators - all caps, misspellings, 'outrightly'.
But just for fun, I decided to use a secondary email account and respond.

Raphael,
This home is still available. What is your offer?

The next day he responded.

Sir,

I don`t believe in offer and counter offer. Just let me know the net/bottom price and if it is ok by me we proceed. 

Thanks

Raphael Tufour

I replied with the following in kind and mimicking his salutation.

Sir,
Compiling data from many sources I was able to come up with an asking price of $250,000.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks.

Of course the funny part was this was way more than what I had listed as my asking price. He must have liked the price, or that I was communicating because he went back on his word and countered my offer for a price that was still higher than my listed asking price, and he also went back to all caps again.

WHAT ABOUT $220,00 SIR?

Confused, I wrote back.

I thought that you said that you "do not believe in offer and counter offer."
What is wrong with $250,000? Are you trying to cheat me?

Now he was confused.

Cheat you in what way sir? How do we proceed?? What is the requirements???

Thanks,

Raphael

What 'are' the requirements. Well, I only require you to be honest in your dealings. Let's see if he can do that.

Well, if you would like to proceed with the purchase price of $250,000 then I will contact my realtor and we can begin work on getting all the paperwork in order that is necessary to complete the sale.

 He must have thought that that was okay.

I would like us to proceed.

Raphael

Turn about's fair play. Let's see what he thinks of me requesting information from him.

To begin, I will need some basic information to prepare the forms.

What is your contact information?
Where do you live?
What is your primary purpose for making this purchase?
What will be your form of payment?

We may also request a current pre-approval letter from a reputable lender.
We may also request a copy of your credit report.

Thanks.

He responded quickly - but not with information. Rather with excuses.

Thanks for your email.
I will provide the requested information necessary to prepare the forms, but please let it be noted that i am a civil servant/government official whose account is highly monitored and regulated in line with civil service bureau for code of conduct for public servants.

In line with the above and as soon as we get things fixed,my handler may be coming with the funds cash in consignment for the invesment matters as the funds may not need to go through the usual banking system until the funds arrives at your end.

Let me know what you think about this.

Thanks
Raphael Tufour

And the truth comes out. He cannot deal honestly with others. I shot back a short reply.

I will tell you what I think about this. You failed to respond to my questions.

I never received another email in reply. It was kind of funny for a while. But sobering to think about how many people still get ripped off from shady internet scammers offering a deal that is too good to be true.
Do you have a story about Internet Scams or phishing emails?  Comment below and let us know.