Off-Topic: payment issues

[dsm]

There have been an increasing number of paypal messages to me telling me I have received a payment, some via a well-known big auction place -- oh boy!-- and some are now coming via an online mass-email marketer.

These have almost gotten past my old method of distinguishing them by glancing at the paypal address because all the way through it they are using a regular paypal URL in the links. But the absurdity of being told I have received money for a sale I know I did not offer is a big tip-off, right? It is beginning to look like the American version of the Nigerian game of telling someone there is money waiting and then involving them in a merry-go-round of bank accounts.

What I did this time was put the URL of the supposed customer in another computer to avoid giving away my ISP addie and I got a "no such domain" message, so then I put it into DNSstuff: On-demand DNS and network tools to analyze, diagnose and monitor a domain or IP address and then I googled the identifying names that came up.

I quickly found the email marketter who is sending this particular fraud-spam around. I sent him a note saying:

"I got your payment notice. You think you are low enough in the law-enforcement radar that a million complaints from the poor jerks you are targetting will not get investigated and you are probably right. You're pretty safe there, hiding behind an anonymous system, thinking nobody can figure out who or where you are.

Have a nice day."

I wish I was a millionaire. I would do a reality enticement-program like that sex-offender one, except I would bring these ^&*(%$#@ fraud-spammers out of the woodwork.

[0rch1dman]

I have to give you props for doing that! I would love to but fear the wrath of a good hacker. Keep your firewalls up and don't take any wooden nickels!!!

[dsm]

hackers schmackers. These kinds of fraudsters are relying on people being as dumb as they are. They buy a program for disguising URL's but they have no clue how URL's actually work!

[bench72]

Wow Denise... hat off you.. I wouldn't even know where to begin to find out who's doing this sort of stuff!

[dsm]

Well, once you pull up the domain info like I did in that DNSSTUFF site (DNS= Domain Name Service) you can see the names of whoever is doing it or the names of someone whose ID they are using. Then just throw those things into Google and see if a spammer company shows up.

In this case they were telling me I received $155 for selling coffee!!!! The last time I received one, it was from a scammer in that oh-boy site who managed to use an old email of an account that had been highjacked, and I was told that I was being paid $$ for some Chinese ointment!!

But we used to be able to rely on the "name-at.com" part of an URL for accuracy, and now we can't. We just have to hope the people who might buy from us are sophisitcated enough to know that legitimate companies do not send transactional emails anymore.

One thing that might help people to know: there are settings inside PayPal for automatic notifications, and I have all mine "off". I don't know if it makes it safer, but I think it does, at least psychologically.

This email had a message in it that I was receiving it because of that setting. Obviously, Paypal would not send me an automatic notification telling me I have my settings set up not to receive automatic notifications of the payment they claim is there!

yukyukyuk.....

[Brutal_Dreamer]

haha.... get'm Denise!

Cheers,
BD

[dsm]

Hey, "Brutal Dreamer".... your nic is making me think: Let's make an action hero, a kind of "spider-man" who is in his daily life a humble orchid tender, but who, on the call of duty, can sic a mighty orchid on 'em... ( or maybe for this we should go to the carnivorous plants genera?)

Maybe it could compete with some of the other stuff in the gamers' world.... *lol*

[Lambert]

Hey, "Brutal Dreamer".... your nic is making me think: Let's make an action hero, a kind of "spider-man" who is in his daily life a humble orchid tender, but who, on the call of duty, can sic a mighty orchid on 'em... ( or maybe for this we should go to the carnivorous plants genera?)

Maybe it could compete with some of the other stuff in the gamers' world.... *lol*

You are on to something, Denise! I sense the potential for a good movie script ... I can see Bruce as a moden day, green thumbed Clark Kent . fighting off the evil hackers.

[cindiras]

Carnivorous plants, definately! Or pitcher plants! Yeah! A giant pitcher plant!

[dsm]

How about a creative thread? Catts or Laurent, you start. Just make up the title and open a thread somewhere with the first sentence setting the scene... maybe the frustrated victim of the evile fraud-spammer is overheard by a nearby orchid plant....