Wally-world!

Hello readers!

I just got a new scam for ya. Its made out to look like it is from Walmart, however, there are a few things that are little off. I wouldn't say this is a bad site when it comes to quality, because it almost looked legit. The person that designed this did it fairly well to serve its purpose. The email though, well, it was plain and not at all like normal emails sent from the retail giant. My bill statements come with blue boarders full of ads for products in their stores. But this email... take a look:

There is absolutely nothing but a link to a site that makes you take the survey in order to get $150 gift certificate (in the subject line... can't miss it!). The site that hosts the survey is a "3rd party" site. http://jefferson-financialfcu.com/walmart/survey.html (In one single day, its gone from the web.) Anyway, the survey is pretty quick, which isn't usual for Walmart... cause I've received REAL surveys from them... and the ones I normally get are three pages long. By pages, I mean that they put 5 questions then have a "next" button that brings you to the next 5, etc etc. I of course... left mine blank.


After the blank form was submitted, I was brought to this next page... which asked for credit card details? They should only be asking for mailing address... not credit card stuff. If you are a winner of the gift certificate, you will get a mailed certificate, a plastic credit card like gift card mailed, or a confirmation code to redeem your gift cert at a local Walmart store (there is one around every corner like a Starbucks, don't be lazy bums!). Seriously.

As you can see... all my fields are funked up. It took it like it were real information though. Actually, it took a couple tries. It declined sixteen 1's and 123 all over. Once I finally was allowed to submit, I was brought to a VERY sad looking "Thank you" page...

Yeah... After seeing a page like that... You would either think nothing of it if you are really oblivious, or you'd think something was definitely wrong at that point.

I now bring you to the actual Jefferson Financial page that hosted the fake survey. As you can see... there really is nothing to it.

Once you are done with everything, you are brought to another page. This would happen to be the REAL site related to Walmart. Applications for jobs, contact information, corporate details and more will be posted here. Check out the logo change on the top bar, too. All the links on the fake survey site brings you to the real Walmart page.

Needless to say, Walmart took the fake site down immediately.

Hopefully by now, some of you have a better understand on what to look for to protect yourself.

Thanks for reading! Until next scam...

FedChoice gone phishing.

Received yet another email scam. This one was a phishing site for FedChoice.org.

As you can see, this is the email. Plain and very simple. It is easy to mask your email to look like someone else sent it, but you need the right email service to do this with. When I clicked on the link, I was brought to www.fedchoice-profiles.org rather fedchoice.org, which is the correct site.

This is the first page that I was taken to.

"Need assistance logging in?" Sure! But where do I click? Its not a common thing to find great help sometimes... but I didn't think it was that hard to find. Yeah... I entered fake information and was brought to another page that was just areas to fill in personal information, such as full credit card information. Again... asking 16 digits, when some cards are less, depending the company you have the card with. Duh? Why would a company like this need your credit card? They have other means of going through your information in a more secure fashion...


Anyway, being the click happy person I am... I clicked everything! At the top, you'll find two bottons; Help Center and Contact Us. The Help Center link went NO WHERE. The contact page brought me to the page where you need to provide your credit card number and such. The second time, it brought me to the REAL contact page... shown below:
Notice how blue the page looks... and how the layout doesn't look like anything the phishing site shows. The Log-In box at the top... the colorful tabs... the url is simple... There is a lot more presentation to the actual site that has actual content. Remember, amateur phisher-men are not interested in what their site looks like in compared to the real thing... especially if its working for them.

Anyway... Looking back at the page where you submit your card details, etc... you are brought to this page: Again... from gray naked page to colorful and fully dressed page. Major difference between the two. Even if you are colorblind, there is no excuse! Its obvious to see that one site has a lot more going on than the other. Something phishy about it... But I emailed them and asked them what the deal was with their site. Barely 10 minutes later, someone wrote back to warn me it was a phishing attempt and that they were in the process of getting it taken care of.
Very good to know! And was very good response time from who ever wrote me back. :)

Don't answer things with out knowing why that information is necessary. Especially online. Once in a while, there will be actual LIVE HELP and they will get on a call with you... chances are, the caller ID is blocked, but if you have a really good one, it will say the company name. If it doesn't look like something you know, just be cautious about it. If the person asks you a series of questions you know they should have on file already, question them. Chances are, you'll ask them too many questions and they will hang up on you assuming you have figured them out.

Anyway, stay safe everyone. Thanks for viewing.

PayPal email scam example.

I was going through my email at work and found a good example of the emails scams sent out by different people for PayPal. Here are a few images of them.

This image below shows the actual body of the email from my gmail business account. There is always an option to "show images" when there are embedded items. Either that, it will come up with blank boxes with the small "X" icon showing the image is "broken" or unable to be opened. As you can see, there is nothing. The biggest thing is, the sender email. I visited the site for form-ppl-cmd.com and its nothing but an index with a .php file you can't access remotely. Also, they know your first and last name and they use it... if not that, they use your account name instead of "Dear PayPal member." Come one now... Continuing through the email, it states that you have to download a file and open in your web browser. Then you have to provide some information to restore your account.
Here is the part where some people get screwed... Once you download this file, it brings you to this next image where you have to fill in the *required spaces:

This was the document straight from the email. I used fake information and entered it in. Only thing real is the zip code... frankly there isn't much you can use that isn't real. 12345 is in New York. And the expiration is just a joke... 12/2012... expected end of the world? Yeah, a bit much, but I went there. Anyway, when you have to enter in security details as such, normally they make you CALL a number or LOG IN to your account before proceeding, but this just asks for your details immediately after you open the doc. And not all PayPal accounts are opened with credit cards. It can be opened with any bank account as well. And not all cards have 16 digits. American Express would be one. And I am sure there are some people that fall for this all the time too! After you submit, it bring you to a paypal page, which still isn't a good idea to use after the redirect from the other form. Its just out of context to get the option to log in to your account AFTER submitting that information... Very very fishy, don't you think? Unfortunately, some people didn't think it was odd at all until it was too late.

If you get any emails that ask for your information, whether it be PayPal, credit card companies, banks, or anything for that matter, make sure the sender's email matches. Even this can be a problem, so visit the website and get a telephone number to just call it in. Sure the service sucks and you end up having to wait nearly an hour before helped, but this is definitely better than talking with someone you think is real and your life is ruined the next day. Always ask questions to why they are contacting you and what the problem is exactly. Don't give vital information out such as credit cards, full social security numbers, or anything like that. All they will need is your email verification, full name, and sometimes an address depending on the concern. They should already have the rest of the information on hand.

If you ever get one of these emails from PayPal, you can forward the email to spoof@paypal.com and they will take care of the rest. You can also fill in their form to report an actual website for fraud. Check out a website where you have an account and see what they are doing to keep you safe from fraud and identity theft.

Stay safe!