Beware of PAYPAL email warning of account expiry. Email has virus/worm!!

Chris PC · 01-19-2004, 10:27 AM

Here is the email:

I received this email and not being fully awake this morning, I ran the application. AVG anti-virus detected an "I-worm" so I stopped the app. Erase this email if you get it! I'm so homer simpson. The file even says its a screen saver! DOH! I was not infected and I did an update and scan. Just delete the email.

Anyone else see this?

(Note the YOUR EMAIL@YOURPROVIDER.COM is just to hide my email.

Also, I put DOT in the apps name just incase they have a website to link you to to give you a worm.

Subject:
YOUR PAYPAL.COM ACCOUNT EXPIRES
Date:
Mon, 19 Jan 2004 10:35:25 -0500
From:
"PayPal.com"
To:
YOU

Dear PayPal member,

PayPal would like to inform you about some important information regarding your PayPal account. This account, which is
associated with the email address

youremail@yourprovider.com

will be expiring within five business days. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause, but this is
occurring because all of our customers are required to update their account settings with their personal information.

We are taking these actions because we are implementing a new security policy on our website to insure everyone's
absolute privacy. To avoid any interruption in PayPal services then you will need to run the application that we have
sent with this email (see attachment) and follow the instructions. Please do not send your personal information through
email, as it will not be as secure.

IMPORTANT! If you do not update your information with our secure application within the next five business days then we
will be forced to deactivate your account and you will not be able to use your PayPal account any longer. It is strongly
recommended that you take a few minutes out of your busy day and complete this now.

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE VIA EMAIL! This mail is sent by an automated message system and the reply will not be
received.

Thank you for using PayPal.

aopaewoe

www dot paypal dot com dot scr

Name:
www dot paypal dot com dot scr
Type:
Screen Saver (application/x-unknown-content-type-scrfile)
Encoding:
base64

ERASE THIS. ITS A WORM!

pass it on!

Jesse Skeen · 01-19-2004, 03:29 PM

Just post your credit card and ATM numbers here instead

Tony Whalen · 01-19-2004, 04:00 PM

Got this one myself.

Although the amusing part to me was that it was addressed to an email address that has nothing to do with my PayPal account, so I was suspicious right away.

Heck, my Mom got one, and she doesn't USE Paypal.

Bill Williams · 01-20-2004, 11:22 AM

Tell me about it. Everyone in my office has been bombarded with that same scam e-mail, and our IS department had to put a block on it. And I don't have a PayPal account on my work e-mail either. When I first got it, I forwarded it directly to the webmasters at PayPal and alerted them as to the scam.

Of course, the ridiculousness of it all came when for like three or four weeks straight, we kept getting that same scam e-mail day after day. It just got to the point where I moved it to my junk e-mail box, then hit the Delete button.

Bob Turnbull · 01-20-2004, 10:43 PM

This one's been around for a few months. Here's a previous thread about it...

**HTF Ads**

Peter Kline · 01-21-2004, 08:24 AM

This spam scam has been around as Bob said for several months. This is the third time I received the email. There's also an Earthlink.net scam as well making the rounds. One of the things that flags these are the bad sentence structure and poor English.

JustinCleveland · 01-21-2004, 08:34 AM

Quote:

One of the things that flags these are the bad sentence structure and poor English.

Then again, it IS paypal...

Peter Kline · 01-21-2004, 10:14 AM

The official Paypal written pages, documents, etc. are in proper English. The people who sell stuff don't always know how to write. There's a difference I'd say.