Another day of phishing…

Most of my friends don’t own homes, so this particular scam won’t affect them, but in case you do, and you wandered over to my blog, and you have an account with Downey Savings, then here’s a heads-up on some shady e-mails that have been going around.

*i removed the pics*

If you go to the real Downey Savings site, and click on their online log-in, you’ll see this message:

CONSUMER ALERT:

Recently, some Downey Savings customers have received fraudulent e-mails requesting confidential personal information. These e-mails may appear to be authentic but Downey Savings will never ask you for confidential information – passwords, Social Security numbers, account numbers, etc. – via e-mail. Please report any suspicious e-mail to reportfraud@downeysavings.com and then, delete it. For more information on how to protect your personal information, click here.

So, there you go. I do not have an account with them, so of course it was an obvious scam to me. I wasn’t even planning to blog about it. I just added them to my junk senders list, forwarded the e-mails to Report Phishing, a goverment site, and forgot about it. But then the scammers decided to be annoying pricks and sent me two more stupid e-mails in less than 24 hours. So I decided that maybe there are a lot of fake e-mails circulating and I should do what I can to get these assholes shut down.

On a happy note, I’m going to see The Police in a few hours!

This one’s GOOD. I nearly fell for it.

Below is the e-mail I received.

*pic removed*

And this is the site that I got directed to after clicking on “Resolution Center.”

*pic removed*

What made me question the authenticity is the fact that the url begins with “http://admin.gruposaurus.com.ar” and not “paypal.com.”

So I decided to go directly to PayPal’s site from a new window. Everything looked nearly identical, except that the fraudelent site didn’t have a tab for “Security Center.” They even had a “Resolution Center” area that I clicked on. But on the real PayPal site, nothing like “Steps to Remove Limitations” showed up (which was the instruction from the e-mail).

So I became more suspicious. I looked through real PayPal’s tips against fraud and found an important note: “All PayPal emails will greet you by your first and last name.”

This e-mail used a generic greeting: “Dear PayPal member”

So I forwarded it to spoof@paypal.com and was promptly sent a reply letting me know that it was indeed a phishing scam and to delete it and what I should do if I had already given my information (which I hadn’t).

So if any of you got an e-mail like this, be careful!

I hate scams. Don’t get suckered by this one.

*pic removed*

Two tip-offs for me:

1) I don’t have, never have, and possibly never will have a BofA account.
2) Their e-mail address is “Bank of America Security Center [bankofamericaokine@yahoo.com].”

Anyway, when I get these I send them directly to http://www.us-cert.gov/nav/report_phishing.html.