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Scam Emails Purportedly from Amazon / PayPal

Spruance
Grafter
Posts: 173
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎03-02-2008

Scam Emails Purportedly from Amazon / PayPal

Last week I received an email purporting to be from PayPal informing me that my account had been locked due to too many log-in attempts. Fortunately I have seen this sort of thing before so I didn't open it, except via message properties, and thus was not tempted either to open the zipped attachment. Logging-in independently to my PayPal account - after first deleting the email - proved it to be perfectly secure.
Yesterday I had an email from "AMAZON.CO.UK" written exactly like that in block capitals. It quoted a long order number in the subject line but also had a zipped attachment. As I don't have any Amazon orders outstanding I just deleted it.
Today a further two "AMAZON.CO.UK" emails have arrived, and again both with zipped attachments. Message Properties reveal that one is from a Gmail user whilst the other is from someone in South Africa. I phoned the UK Police ActionFraud line http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/ but was directed to submit a report online and then to forward the email to their bespoke phishing email address before deleting the message from my PC. However, the forwarded messages were blocked by the Police servers due to potentially containing spam or virus (I kid you not), so how anyone is supposed to report this type of crime I just don't know. When I phoned Action Fraud back they saud that there was nothing that they could do about it. Roll_eyes
What I find puzzling is why does the City Of London Police phishing email address block this type of incoming message, but Plusnet's servers do not? Surely there must be something that can be done to stop this type of message going out to individual users?
I am always very wary about opening any emails with attachments but choosing Amazon as the visible - if not actual - message sender is very likely to catch people out. So just beware when checking your emails and don't fall for the scammers tricks. It is also worth remembering that genuine PayPal/Amazon emals do not include attachments.
2 REPLIES 2
picbits
Rising Star
Posts: 3,432
Thanks: 23
Registered: ‎18-01-2013

Re: Scam Emails Purportedly from Amazon / PayPal

I've had a range through today (all with .zip files attached which contain .exe files) pretending to be from Amazon, Fed-ex and various others.
Don't believe the "reply-to" - it certainly won't be from anyone you can reply to. The xyz@gmail.com is easily spoofed.
You will probably find that even the email server it has been sent from are unaware that they have been compromised and are sending out this spam - my email server gets 2-3 hacking attempts a day from people trying to compromise and use it to send spam out.
Spruance
Grafter
Posts: 173
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎03-02-2008

Re: Scam Emails Purportedly from Amazon / PayPal

Intriguingly I have had another one of these today inviting me to open a zipped attachment but the attachment isn't there. So thumbs-up to PN if this is something they had organised.  Smiley