Stay SAFE with PayPal - Email Scam
19th January 2004

If the bad grammar doesn't give this Spoof Email Scam away, then perhaps the spelling errors will? ...

This spoof email appears to come form Paypal, but it is a forgery and will not send you to a Paypal page if you use the button provided.

The 'Login Now' button would have taken you to a forged Paypal page at http://ludicures.tripod.com/PayPal-LogIn.htm although you may not see this URL in your address bar as this scam exploits a known bug in Internet Explorer browsers. This bug allows the URL shown in the address bar to be spoofed (forged).

This bug has been increasingly exploited by email scammers of late, and we eagerly await a patch from Microsoft. The vulnerability can also allow a fake URL to be shown in the status bar of Microsoft Outlook and browser products (while holding the cursor over the cloaked link). We have set up a Browser Test cloaked link which you can use to see if your browser is vulnerable. You can also check links in emails or web pages for cloaking using our Link Checker, and you can check for URL spoofing while at a web page using our URL Checker.

The forged web page had already been removed by the time we received reports of this email, so we only have an image snapshot of the email.

If you have received this email, please remember that it is very common for these email scams to be redistributed at a later date with only slightly different content or the same but with the fake page(s) hosted by a different provider. Also, once you have received one of these hoaxes, it is also common place to receive at least another one and usually a day or two after the first, although not necessarily from the same apparent sender.

Take a good look at the following images, because this email scam may be coming to an inbox near you!

The Email ...