hey y'all - scam alert for my iris friends

I just got an emailed paypal warning alert about a foreign entity trying to access my paypal account. It looked really really legit.

But I passed it on to hubby, a programming guru. (So nice to have one of those in my back pocket!) He used his expertise to check where it responded to if you clicked on the link: straight to Hong Kong!

so be forewarned - this did really look legit.

Thanks bonjon - I do a lot on EBay/PayPal and am always looking for suspicious emails - actually responded to one a while back and someone watched live-stream sex movies on my computer (guess PayPal believed it wasn't me when I said I was at work, at my ATTORNEY'S office. Will never do that again!!! Sue

DH just explained to me that he didn't actually click on the link, he went "behind what is shown" to see in the code where it went. Although the link said "Paypal" on the surface, the hidden "out of sight" directions in its link sent it elsewhere.

This message was edited Jun 13, 2010 4:58 PM

Just to make sure everyone understands, this was a bogus warning from Paypal if I'm reading your post correctly. This is what is called pfishing - emails sent by scammers hoping you'll be dumb enough to think it's really from Paypal and click on the link. Usually at the link you'll be infected with a trojan or other virus that allows the scammers to steal info from your computer.

Never, ever even open an email that's supposedly from Paypal, Ebay, your bank, etc. That means make sure your email is set to NOT preview emails.

What your husband did to check the source was right click on the title of the email, click on properties, click on details, click on message source. Under received: from you'll see the actual email source. Scroll down to the message and you'll see the actual url for the bogus Paypal link. Keep in mind some of the scammers try to set up urls that sound legit when they really aren't, so even if the url says paypal in the somewhere, it could still be bogus. Sometimes if there's not a lot of html in the email you can even read the text of the message there without really opening the email.

You should also report it to ebay, paypal or whoever, don't just delete it.

I use Outlook.

Do you mean to right click on the Subject Line of the email? I only get Options as an option. But when I choose Options I get a window that shows me the "Internet Header" which has a lot of information about how the email was delivered. Is that what you mean?

Thanks for the heads up.

I use outlook too, and get an automatic preview

If you have your preview pane turned off, which you should, your mailbox should just show the list of emails - titles, subject line whatever you want to call it. Right click on any email and a box will pop up that starts with Open and ends with Properties. Left click on properties, etc.

Here's how to turn off the preview pane in Outlook.
http://cybercoyote.org/security/prevpane.htm

I get those emails sometimes and have learned instead of opening it, I just go to Paypal, Craigs List, Ebay, wherever, and see if there is a message there for me on the actual site. If there isn't, then I know it is just spam and ignore it.
Deb

Thanks, hart, but in Outlook, when I right click on the unopened message in the Inbox I don't have a Properties option. I have only an Option option.

Sorry, Katie, it's been years since I've used Outlook and when I did, the process above worked. I use Windows Mail. From options, just click on Internet Headers. Or more options and then internet headers.

This article explains how to open the message source in a bunch of email programs and explains what you're looking at when you open it.
http://luxsci.com/blog/viewing-the-message-source-full-headers-of-an-email.html

Thanks for the followup and thanks for the link. That's what I'm seeing. Thank you all. It's good to know this is information is there.