2384 Gone Phishing

Monday, May 4, 2009

Ever since I upgraded my eBay and PayPal accounts, I've seen a large increase in phishing email claiming to be from eBay and PayPal, which leaves me wondering how these people get my email id. Because of the increase since I upgraded, I no longer think it's just random. They're getting the info somehow from eBay and PayPal.

They're easy to spot - bad grammar, poor formatting, and since I'm now listed as a seller, they are coming from people who claim to have bought an item from me (I haven't sold anything yet), and have a question. They want me to log in to eBay or PayPal to see the transaction, and have the link right there. What they don't know is that my email host allows me to hover over the link, and it shows what the REAL link is. It might look like ebay.com, but hovering exposes it to actually be ripyouoff.com, and if I click on it, they'll present a screen that looks just like the real thing, and they'll steal my password.

I always forward them to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com, who send me "thank you"s, but I wonder if they do anything else with the information. I see the same ripoff sites over and over.

Today I got one announcing that my PayPal account had been suspended for suspicious activity, and that I had to log in immediately to verify the activity. It was very well done, good graphics and everything, and then I saw this sentence (emphasis mine):

"If you are traveling and made these login attempts yourself or borrowed your PayPal account to someone else, please log in below."

"Borrowed to"?

I sent it immediately to Spoof.

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Well, I did try the temporary hair color again, this time for the full 40 minutes. It looked ok that evening - less beige and more light golden brown than I wanted, but still ok. The next day I looked in the mirror and saw pink. Pink in the section over and in front of my ears. Ack!

I know mirrors can lie, especially where color is concerned, so when I went to the village I stopped in Piper's office. He immediately said he liked my hair. Piper is a poltician. He'll always say he likes anything he notices is new, so I discounted that and specifically asked him if it was pink. He said no, no pink.

Saturday I ran into a friend, and she said, all in one breath, "Oh how nice to see you I haven't seen you in ages your hair is pink!"

Damn Piper.

He called this morning to set up lunch for Wednesday, and I took him to task over the pink. He reminded me he's colorblind. Damn. I knew that. I'd forgotten. He can't see reds or greens, or some blues, oranges, and purples. Everything is shades of sepia to him.

So I guess I'll have pink hair for a few months.
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