Hello TheMoneyTools family. WELCOME back to my blog. Yesterday while I was at work, I received a suspicious email in my personal gmail account with the title “REMINDER _ YOU HAVE PAID AN INVOICE”
This email looked legit right?
iT stated that I have sent $479 from my Paypal account to my Coinbase investment account and I need to click “View and Pay Invoice” to complete the payment.
What I shouldn’t do but I did it anyway
Yes, I panicked and I clicked the “View and Pay Invoice” button. I saw a few more things I had to do after clicking that link. They expected me to go through with it so they could steal my Coinbase and Paypal information. Fortunately I closed it right away and nothing happened yet.
I even called the helpdesk phone number listed in the email: 888-764-9731. When I called, I could tell right away that it wasn’t PayPal because I got connected to a real person after a few rings. A male voice answered on the other side. All I said was:
“ Are you guys REALLY PayPal?”
And I hung up. I logged in both PayPal and Coinbase accounts to check the activities, nothing showed up in regards to the $479.
What I did to report the scammer
- I contacted Paypal. They don’t have an option to talk to a real person but they texted me an email address ( Phishing@paypal.com) and ask me to forward that email to them. A few hour after I report it, they sent me an email with this information:
- I cleared my browser search and Cache “within the last 7 days”
- I reported the email as phishing to my Gmail account.
If you are like me who receive these kind of suspicious email, especially the one that looks like they try to scam your information, please follow the following instructions:
- Do not open it. In some cases, the act of opening the phishing email may cause you to compromise the security of your Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
- Delete it immediately to prevent yourself from accidentally opening the message in the future.
- Do not download any attachments accompanying the message. Attachments may contain malware such as viruses, worms or spyware.
- Never click links that appear in the message. Links embedded within phishing messages direct you to fraudulent websites.
- Do not reply to the sender. Ignore any requests the sender may solicit and do not call phone numbers provided in the message.
- Report it. Help others avoid phishing attempt
Great blog. Scammers are running rampage. It’s hard to do social media and deal with these scammer at the same time. You gotta be careful because a lot of your personal information is out there. Good luck and don’t give up
Great blog you have here.. It’s hard to find quality writing like yours these days. I truly appreciate people like you! Take care!!
Haley,
Thank you for the kind words.
Hope all is well
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