[HATS] OT - Pay Pal Hoax -- Critical Warning!

[Ron L. Sparks]

I recently received a SCAM from unknown persons that you should watch
out for, especially if you are a PayPal user.

The attached message was in HTML format and looked just like a PayPal
web page.  Being the suspicious type, I immediately logged into PayPal
and found no such limitation.  Then as I checked the header info I found
that it came to an e-mail address that I do not even have linked to my
PayPal account.  The rest of the header was spoofed nicely so that it
looked like a real PayPal message.

I reported it to PayPal and did some other searches and found this has
happened to others.

Once again my policy of not giving out data on ANYTHING where I am not
the originator has apparently saved the day.

Pass this on as widely as you can.

Be careful out there!

Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: info@paypal.com [mailto:info@paypal.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 12:38 PM
To: 
Subject: Your PayPal account is Limited.

 PAYPAL LOGO
 Dear PayPal Customer  
PayPal is currently performing regular maintenance of our security
measures. Your account has been randomly selected for this maintenance,
and placed on Limited Access status. Protecting the security of your
PayPal account is our primary concern, and we apologize for any
inconvenience this may cause. 
To restore your account to its regular status, you must confirm your
email address by logging in to your PayPal account using the form below:
Top of Form
Email Address:  Password:   Bank Account  Enter Bank Account #:   Credit
Card  Enter Credit Card #:  Exp. date : 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
12 / 03 04 05 06 07   Bottom of Form

This notification expires March 31, 2003  
Thanks for using PayPal!   This PayPal notification was sent to your
mailbox. Your PayPal account is set up to receive the PayPal Periodical
newsletter and product updates when you create your account. To modify
your notification preferences and unsubscribe, go to
https://www.paypal.com/PREFS-NOTI and log in to your account. Changes to
your preferences may take several days to be reflected in our mailings.
Replies to this email will not be processed. 

If you previously asked to be excluded from Providian product offerings
and solicitations, they apologize for this e-mail. Every effort was made
to ensure that you were excluded from this e-mail. If you do not wish to
receive promotional e-mail from Providian, go to
http://removeme.providian.com/. 

CopyrightC 2002 PayPal Inc. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks
and brands are the property of their respective owners.

--------- End of Original Message --------------------