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   Alex Hall (alexhall@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Nov-2024 20:25:01 JST Alex Hall

   My mom got 2 emails from Paypal. One was a purchase update, the other was something about an invoice. Both were unrelated to her account and didn't use her name, so she thought they were fake. I looked through them, and they had only links to paypal.com. Even the links to view the transactions or report a scam went to paypal.com. She called Paypal, and they said the emails were phishing. How were they phishing if the links went to the official website? The phone number was fake, but that was it.

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     Anna e só (anna@friend.camp)'s status on Friday, 22-Nov-2024 20:25:00 JST Anna e só

     in reply to

     @alexhall You could inspect the email headers. They may tell you if they came from PayPal servers.

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     Anna e só (anna@friend.camp)'s status on Friday, 22-Nov-2024 20:43:03 JST Anna e só

     in reply to

     • Phil Dennis-Jordan 😷

     @pmdj @alexhall 💯, someone on Bluesky, I think, talked about how Google's AI answers were directing users to a fake phone number for American Airlines. They may not believe the message they're reading is legitimate, but they may be convinced by someone over the phone. I've seen that happen with a close family member.

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     Phil Dennis-Jordan 😷 (pmdj@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Nov-2024 20:43:04 JST Phil Dennis-Jordan 😷

     in reply to

     • Anna e só

     @alexhall @anna It takes some effort to make a convincing looking scam website, and I suspect a lot of people are now sensitive to web based phishing. So it’s maybe just not worth it anymore, whereas running a scam phone bank is.

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     Phil Dennis-Jordan 😷 (pmdj@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Nov-2024 20:43:05 JST Phil Dennis-Jordan 😷

     in reply to

     • Anna e só

     @alexhall @anna Maybe the phone number IS the scam. If a mark receives an invoice for something they didn’t buy, logs into the website and can’t see it, they might still worry and phone the number given. Then the scammers can string them along with any old “ah yes, that one hasn’t made it to the web interface yet, but I can cancel it for you now. I’ll just need your card details to verify…”

   • Embed this notice
     Alex Hall (alexhall@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Nov-2024 20:43:06 JST Alex Hall

     in reply to

     • Anna e só

     @anna They probably didn't, especially since the phone number was wrong. I don't doubt they were fake, I just don't get the scam if all the links were correct.