[DavidI]

Today my wife received an email from Paypal requesting payment for a laptop. She immediately called me at work to find out if I had made the purchase. I had not, but a couple of days ago I purchased a training collar for my dog online using Paypal to pay the bill.

She forwarded the email to me. I opened the email which appeared official in every way. The invoice contained all of the necessary information that you would find on a bill such as the item, tax, shipping cost, etc.

Below the information was the name of the purchaser, which of course was not me. Below this, in much bigger font, red in color, was a link that read "Cancel this order." I clicked on the link and a new Paypal with all the correct logos and information again appeared. On this page, official appearing boxes for my logon and password appeared. Again, it looked legitimate. The cop in me became suspicious. I closed this page without input my information and went directly to the Paypal site. I logged on to the official site and checked the balance and activity. Of course, there were no such purchases.

I quickly surmised that the initial email was fraudulent. I let some investigators know about the site who quickly shut it down.

Beware!

David