More Online Scams Target Earthlink, PayPal

from the suckers,-suckers,-everywhere dept

Just a day after reports came out about a "sophisticated" scam to get PayPal users to give up their name, social security number, credit card info, and bank account info was exposed, Earthlink is claiming they've stopped a similar scam targeted at their users. While, unlike scams in the past, these scammers are doing a much better job making their emails and websites look official, I'm still curious who actually falls for these things? Anyone sends an email asking for that sort of info and it's clear that it's a scam.
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  1. identicon
    Lyndon Liberty, 8 Mar 2003 @ 11:17am

    You are suprized this still works?

    You must not watch much TV or talk to those who do... lol the show "Street Smarts" is a good example... I recorded all the questions asked for one week, then bet my friend that I could go out locally and find just as many idiots, he declined the bet because he was afraid he would be proven wrong in his comfortable dillusion. I went out anyway, they must cut 60% of the idiots to get one show....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Michael Ax, 8 Mar 2003 @ 6:06pm

    blaming the victims doesnt cut it dudes

    if people didnt like the mileage they got out of these stories we would have browsers that made compliance with the URL authentication part of the HTTP RFC optional.

    as is we have you grandstanding and everyone else 'recording the facts' while everyday thousands of browsers are installed with slavish conformity to this most expensive and dangerous loophole of them all.

    i have written to scores of sites and people - this one included - about this loophole and nobody seems to 'GET' that these things would not happen if the browser status bars would properly resolve target urls rather than merely echoing the first part of the string.

    this part of 'the web' is broken badly from a usability pov and people writing browers like IS/NS/opera need to be told to protect the noob's by making URL AUTHENTICATION something that defaults to off.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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