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Thread: ATTN: AOL users billing scam!

  1. #1
    Inactive Member c_77's Avatar
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    This morning my dad received an email from Bill @ aol.com urging him to update his records. It said that failing to do so in the next 24 hrs. could result in termination of services.

    As my dad started looking at the billing form something caught his eye. Not only did they ask for his credit or checking number, but also his credit card limit. Everything else about this email looked 100% kosher. It even had a faq section!

    So my dad contacted AOL to find out what the email was all about. They told him it was a scam and had no record of that email. All his billing was up to date. The email had almost everything as a required field, and even gave detailed instructions how to write down your checking account number. It had the AOL logo's on it, credit card logos, and even had pictures on how to write your mica number off your check.

    I've looked at the message. It looked totally legit.

    P.S. - Since yesterday my sister has recieved a similar email. Do NOT ever follow any links at AOL to update your records. Call them directly and you won't ever be sorry. I use earthlink so I am not aware of all their scams, but this one was very professional looking.

  2. #2
    Inactive Member Matt Pacini's Avatar
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    I saw several similar PayPal scams (which is a scam organization in itself, but that's another topic!), and they looked totally legit.
    You have to realize just how easy it is to snag logos & everything else on any webpage anywhere.

    Any 13 year old kid with some web design software could do this, it's that easy.

    I had a scare recently.
    I won an auction on ebay for a lens, then got an email saying how much to pay, etc., and the phone number to call if I wanted to pay with a credit card.
    I decided to do that, since it was in England (I'm in California), so it would speed up the process.
    I called the guy, paid with credit card, then the next day happened to be looking over my emails, and noticed that the email address for this email didn't match the one for the person listed on ebay selling the lens!!!!!
    WARNING FLAG!!!!
    Before I panicked, I started checking links, & the website that their ebay sale listed, and thank God it was the same guy, so I was safe (got the lens today!)
    But I've heard of people doing this:
    They see an ebay sale, and simply email the person, or make a phony "invoice" using either ebay logos, PayPal logos, or both, asking the person to send the money to their account, which of cousre, the person does.
    Problem is, it's not the person who is selling the item!
    Think about this the next time you buy something on ebay: are you actually responding to the same email address?

    Matt

  3. #3
    Inactive Member c_77's Avatar
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    That is interesting that you mentioned Paypal, because my dad thinks it had something to do with him having both a Paypal account and an aol account. This is because everyone he knows that has both got a similar sounding email, those with just aol did not.

    The phoney aol email actually orginated from Yugoslavia. He now understands that aol emails are always in blue, but how hard is it to make your email blue!?

    Also, Best Buy had been experiencing a similar phoney email scam.

    That's a new one on me, how scammers will email you after an eBay auction ends asking for payment info! Amazing. Seems like there is a new one everyday day, huh?

    I know that some eBay scammers puff-up their seller feedback by selling small, unrelated items. Eventually, they go on to 'selling' expensive laptop computers and pda organizers. People cannot tell that a couple of months back they were selling pens to themselves, etc. This is because eBay's feedback system only lets you view the items or their category for a short period of time. Hopefully, ebay will lengthen that amount of time, or give more specific long-term info about sold items on the feedback pages.

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