AOL users beware!!!!

I almost got taken by a fraud aol billing email . It stated that there was a problem in my account information and that it needed to be udated. So I went to the site to update the info I became very leary when it asked for my pin #. It then stated that this pin# had to be valid for at least the next two days. Whew! I signed off and immediately went to AOL Billing and asked them what the problem was. They stated that they had not sent the message and that it was a bogus message and place an immediate fraud alert. They said that they have a zero tollerance for this sort of thing.
My question was how did they get my info to start with? Someone said that it could have came from an ebay account or paypal account.
So be forwarned. Keep a look out for fraud billing mgrs.
They had me forward the email to TOSReports@aol.com.

Jan,

I just had a conversation with my computer man about this yesterday. (I have had emails from PayPal & Ebay look alikes asking for me to update account info.)

Any he says, the frauds send out massive amounts of "fishing bait" and wait for people to bite. Even clicking on the reply confirms to them that they hit a valid email account. Tis scary to think how they do this and what they do with your info.

Good thing you caught yourself in time.

:^)
Molly

I've gotton the same type of emails. I NEVER click on a link to verify or update info. I go directly to the sites' address via my web browser (if the mail came from AOL i'd go to AOL.com, etc) and log into my account that way. If anything needs changed or updated, I do it once i'm in. There are sick people out there, BEWARE!

Happened to us too. Notification came in on my DH's account that his "domain" was going to expire and they needed an update on his credit card info. I was immediately suspicious as we don't pay our AOL bill by credit card.Needless to say I did not respond. D

Just make sure you report these to AOL or whoever your internet company is. That way they have a way to track/trace them down and get at least one to stop.

It happens to me, too. I got taken once, though. Kimberly, instead of doing it the way you did (going directly to the site), I clicked on the link in the email address to look at it more thoroughly. Big mistake. I mean BIG, too. $1700 charged to our credit card in only two transactions. We didn't have to pay anything, of course, but it was a rude awakening. I'm so naive about these things. Taught me a lesson about fraud, for sure.

Yep! Keep your wits about you when you are opening any email or spam. I was lucky this time.

Another thing crooks do is hi-jack ebay accounts. It happened to us 2 months ago. One morning we couldn't get into our ebay acct. and had an email msg. from ebay that our acct. was hi-jacked. I had to change our email address, send it to ebay, they sent us a temporary password, then I had to go on to an online chat with an ebay guy and change the password. The really awful thing was that we did not know it had happened! We noticed that we had some really strange emails but just deleted them. This person had listed items with our acct. information and then hi-jacked our email too. All to avoid paying for the listings!!