Fake PayPal and eBay emails collect data for identity theft

January 8, 2004

Two emails circulating the internet pretend to be from eBay and PayPal, and an online auction site and web payment company. They lure readers to a phony site in an attempt to steal personal and financial information to defraud customers.

(PRWEB) -- Identity theft is rampant these days, and the methods that the thieves use are becoming more sophisticated. One method that has come to our attention as of late is the use of emails that bear the logos of companies such as eBay and Paypal, and appear to be legitimate.

They target users of these services and claim that they need to update their information with them, or that some fraudulent transaction has occurred in their account. They then provide a link to a site where they can update their information.

While the links often contain the names of the legitimate company, they send the user to a site set up by the thieves for the sole purpose of collecting the users name, account number, social security number and credit card information.

Armed with this data, they can then assume the identity of the customer and spend freely.

The phony sites are usually only up for a few hours or days, and then they disappear as quickly as they appeared.

For more information on this topic and to ready the actual emails sent by the identity theft thieves, please see http://www.identity-theft-help-information.com/paypal_fake_alert-01-06-2004.html
and http://www.identity-theft-help-information.com/ebay_fake_alert-01-03-2004.html.