by Blobster
Tue Aug 04, 2015 4:42 am
Just joined this site today in the UK so as to publicise an event which occurred yesterday afternoon, which thankfully I spotted and managed to prevent any financial loss.
Around 4:30 my private e-mail was bombed with around 300 spam e-mails in the space of 3 minutes, which for me was a highly unusual volume of traffic and pretty much ground things to a complete halt in my mailbox.
What to do? Well, as most of us would probably do I started to delete en masse that which was quite obviously spam, eg Californian hair salons, Albanian pizza parlours et al!! Anyway, as I was doing so I noticed buried in amongst the spam a notification of a payment from paypal.
I clicked on the e-mail and it was for a payment for goods of €2200!! At first I thought this was just another spam e-mail, but then I thought I'd log on to my Paypal account - not through the link on the e-mail though, and to my horror once I'd logged in, there was the payment on my list of transactions!.........How the hell?????
I managed to cancel my bank - paypal link, so nothing could be taken, and paypal have also thankfully now resolved and cancelled the transaction.
It frightens me to think that I could so easily have deleted the paypal transaction notification e-mail, so was just pure luck that I was sat by the computer as the e-mails were dropping in - if I'd just walked in and seen a screen full of 300 spam mails I'd have probably done what anyone else would have - grabbed the lot and binned them in one hit, and then found out a few days later when the money had gone.
I've no idea where or when I've been slack, enabling them to gain access to attempt this transaction, but it has sure woken me up! As it happens I deliberately link my paypal to an old dormant bank account, into which I drop some funds as and when necessary, so although it wouldn't have left us penniless, one sure doesn't need the hassle.
Hope this helps someone else to spot this attempted heist on their system
Stay sharp!!
Blobster
Around 4:30 my private e-mail was bombed with around 300 spam e-mails in the space of 3 minutes, which for me was a highly unusual volume of traffic and pretty much ground things to a complete halt in my mailbox.
What to do? Well, as most of us would probably do I started to delete en masse that which was quite obviously spam, eg Californian hair salons, Albanian pizza parlours et al!! Anyway, as I was doing so I noticed buried in amongst the spam a notification of a payment from paypal.
I clicked on the e-mail and it was for a payment for goods of €2200!! At first I thought this was just another spam e-mail, but then I thought I'd log on to my Paypal account - not through the link on the e-mail though, and to my horror once I'd logged in, there was the payment on my list of transactions!.........How the hell?????
I managed to cancel my bank - paypal link, so nothing could be taken, and paypal have also thankfully now resolved and cancelled the transaction.
It frightens me to think that I could so easily have deleted the paypal transaction notification e-mail, so was just pure luck that I was sat by the computer as the e-mails were dropping in - if I'd just walked in and seen a screen full of 300 spam mails I'd have probably done what anyone else would have - grabbed the lot and binned them in one hit, and then found out a few days later when the money had gone.
I've no idea where or when I've been slack, enabling them to gain access to attempt this transaction, but it has sure woken me up! As it happens I deliberately link my paypal to an old dormant bank account, into which I drop some funds as and when necessary, so although it wouldn't have left us penniless, one sure doesn't need the hassle.
Hope this helps someone else to spot this attempted heist on their system
Stay sharp!!
Blobster
