You Have One New Private Message.

To view your message, please download the form attached to this email and open it in a web browser.

Thank you, Pay,Pal.

And a file – PP-ACC.html – was attached.

There’s no virus in the file or anything like that but if you download it and run it, you’re presented with a contact form, of sorts:

So it looks pretty professional, but it’s running from your hard drive and if you fill out the form and submit it, it uses http://sosetephpone.com/tmp/bar-on.php or possibly http://sosetephpone.com/tmp/netsol-form.php to process. So if you send the form through, you’re sending all your info to those people – then you’re redirected to PayPal’s About Us page. (I did send the form through with false information telling them how much they sucked after removing the verification part of the code from the html so it would send through whatever I want. Otherwise, it tries to prompt you to enter in a valid pin, etc.)

Of course, we know from the email itself that this is NOT from PayPal. Remember, you can always tell right away because PayPal will ALWAYS ALWAYS address you as Dear First Name Last Name….

If you got this email, just spam it and/or delete it. And don’t fret, they don’t have your info already!

This has been another public service announcement, brought to you by the letters S, F, and the number 4.

And then this video:

Dear MSNBC,

Just at which point did that guy’s skin color change from black to white? Obviously, it must have been some time before your clip started.

NEWSFLASH:

That man you showed wearing the assault rifle was NOT WHITE. He was a black man. Therefore, you are lying. Why is it that if someone is white and disagrees with something the president says or does, they are automatically labeled as a racist? In most cases it has nothing to do with that! In fact, I have yet to actually encounter someone who disagrees with him simply because he is (half) black. You are attempting to mislead the American people to get them to believe what you want them to believe, that only a white man would or could ever disagree with the president, that only a white man would, gasp, own a gun, and that all white people are, therefore, racist. YOU are the ones creating this “racial tension” and “undertones.” The average Joe does not feel this way. It is time for biased media to go the way of the buffalo. You will soon find that people are trusting, watching, and listening to you less and less as they turn for more reliable, more un-slanted reporting!

Signed,
someone who’s not an idiot.

So, like, last week, ok. I’m on I-270 where I-44 comes on so it’s like 6 or 7 lanes at this point and I see this woman… First of all, she’s in the absolute ugliest car I have ever seen in my entire life: a PT Cruiser that has this wood paneling or something and the rest of it is this greenish-teal color. Seriously, you know you want to see it, or one like it —> here. I told you so, are your eyes burning? So, anyway. She got on the highway there and I really can’t see her because it actually looks like her dog is driving the car. She’s got him on her lap between her left arm and the door of the vehicle and he’s just sitting up straight there and she’s leaning over to the right. As she’s doing that, she’s also drifting into the lane to her left. It’s a good thing there was no one between us in the two lanes there. As I pass her, she sits up and I see what she was doing. You guessed it, she had been reaching for her cell phone. I got away from her as fast as I could!

It’s not that I’ve never done any real highway driving before, it’s just that I haven’t really had to do much in the last several years and when I do, it’s not on a daily basis and not usually during rush hours. I’m trying my best to avoid rush hours now and I have been missing the worst part of it, but sometimes I catch the beginnings of it in the afternoons.

I am really surprised though, how some of these people manage to live each day and don’t just kill us all as we go down the highway.

Yesterday, I was going home, on I-270, so I’m going South, just as rush hour is starting. I’m in the second to the left lane and minding my own business. This car in the far left lane pulls right up alongside me but it’s not until he’s right.there that I see he has his blinker on to get into my lane. It’s like, what do you want me to do? Slam on my brakes so you can get in that lane? So I just keep going, there’s another car in front of me, for that guy to get in my lane at all, really at any point, he would have cut me off. So he like slams on his gas and flies up and gets in front of the car in front of me. Guess what? He could have done that to begin with, right, cause there was no one in front of the car in front of me for at least 5 car lengths.

So I’m just like – whatever – and then this guy in a motorcycle pulls up really fast and really close to me, in that left lane. He catches my eye enough that I turn my head and look right at him because – whoa, dude – could you BE any closer (in my best Chandler voice). He starts motioning towards me with his right hand and then towards, I assume, the guy that just passed me, and he’s talking. Like I can actually understand him, or something. Then in this ticked off manner, he brings his hand back to his motorcycle and speeds off extremely fast. I’m left to go… what.the.heck?

I can only assume he was chastising me for not letting the guy into my lane, but again, what am I supposed to do, slam on my brakes and risk my life and the lives of those behind me so he can get into the lane?

Besides people like that, I also get irritated with people who don’t use a blinker, change lanes for no reason (especially during heavy traffic and usually because these people are constantly changing lanes), people who quickly change more than one lane at a time (zooming all across the highway, I mean, at least pause and re-check to make sure no one is going to get clobbered between each lane change) — Bonus points for doing that without a signal! Then there’s the people that pass you and then get in front of you only to slow way down, the people who you are passing and they speed up just as you start to pass, the big trucks that ride side by side so no one can pass them at all and go 20 miles per hour. Then the people who see a cop and slow down to 5 to 10 miles under the speed limit! I mean, hello, he’s not going to pull you over for doing the limit! Ok, the list goes on and on. :)

So no, I’m not really tired of the drive so much – just the morons! So I’ve found that evening visits are good for me, I like coming home on the highway at 7 or 8 when the highways are pretty empty!

Yesterday I listed my SLR camera on Craigslist. Since I have a dSLR now and the fact that I haven’t shot much film since 2004 anyway, Steve insists I try to sell it (even though I don’t want to). Anyway, within hours, I had an email from someone who was asking if it was still for sale, that it would make a great Christmas gift. Nothing about the email was suspicious, or the emails following where we discussed payment and shipping, etc.

Some might say the whole idea of shipping things with Craigslist is strange, but I actually live an hour away from the area I “subscribe” to with Craigslist, so I don’t have a problem shipping things. I always mention that I can meet the people in such-and-such areas or ship but since I often get responses from people who are on the North end of the area and I on the South end, if the item’s shippable, I assume that’s what’s gonna happen.

So the guy ends up telling me that it will be a gift for his son who’s away in college that I ship it there. I really don’t think anything of it because, again, it’s Christmastime and there was nothing red-flaggy about the emails.

But when I got the payment email this morning, I knew right away it was a scam. How?

– He “paid” me for $200 when I was asking $125 for the camera and a max of $12 for shipping.

Anytime someone sends you more money than what you are asking for, it’s a scam. I’ve never heard of this NOT being a scam.
A friend of mine who I do her website and she breeds dogs recently had this happen. Actually, I just called to verify and they’ve had it happen in excess of nine times now. Of course, it was only the first guy that got the farthest, the others were nipped in the bud right away. But basically, someone sent them a check for more than twice the cost of the dog and shipping and they were supposed to cash the check (which turned out to be a legitimate check, stolen from an airline) and give the difference to the courier who was supposedly coming to pick up the dog. Of course, if it all went to the scammer’s plan, they would have lost the dog and been out all the money when the check came back bad.

If someone sends you a check/cashier’s check/money order for than what you’re asking for and what has been agreed upon, report it right away. If the check looks legitimate, call the company or person on the check and verify. That’s how my friends found out the check was stolen, and the airline was very happy to hear where it ended up. If it comes from PayPal and it’s really in your account, report it to PayPal immediately.

– The email didn’t address me by name, it said dear [email address]

PayPal will ALWAYS address you by name. Never “dear member” or “dear anything else” – ALWAYS by your name that you have on the account. The ONLY time I have received mail from PayPal that didn’t have my name on it was when I forwarded this spoof email to spoof@paypal.com and got a response that it was fraud and thanks for forwarding it. Then they responded with Dear name that appeared on my outgoing email, aka my company name.

So any time you get an email from “PayPal” that doesn’t address you by name, just delete it, it’s fake!

– The subject line of the email was non-PayPal-typical, every word was capitalized and it had misspellings and said it was a payment for an “auction.”

Proper PayPal emails actually spell things right and usually follow the same format that is to say, basically, “Notification of Payment Received from [name] [(email address)].”

– The email header image was not the one that PayPal uses for payment notifications.

This good:

(followed by solid blue line)

This bad:

– Email said it was from Service@paypal.com

Also a dead giveaway. The email claims to be from service@paypal.com but it’s actually from some address at mail2pal.com which is apparently a free email service much like Yahoo or Hotmail.

– Shipping address was:
Name: Kevin Innocent F.
Address: #26 Peter Okoye Street Uwani,
City: ENUGU,
State: ENUGU STATE,
Zip Code: 400001
Country: NIGERIA

Need I really say more?
Now I don’t know that that’s a real address or not (Engu is a real city, the capital) but, well, I feel sorry for those legitimate Nigerians ’cause those scammers really have ruined it for them. I am very wary of anything that claims to be from Nigeria. That’s just the way it is.

But let’s say I’ve fallen for the scam? And I do ship to Nigeria? Then not only have I lost any income, but I’ve lost the camera, AND I’ve spent a buttload of money in shipping. I have a friend who was a missionary to Nigeria and now is in Niger, trust me, it’s not cheap!

– Besides all that, the bottom of the email said:

This PayPal. payment has been deducted from the buyer’s account and has been “APPROVED”but will not be credited to your account until the shipment reference/tracking number is sent to us for shipment verification and this is done to secure both the buyer and the seller against any fraudulent activities. Below are the necessary information requested before your account will be credited. Send tracking number to us or email us through this Mail paypal_service@mail2pal.com our customer service care will attend to you. As soon as you send us the shipment’s tracking number the money will be credited to your account and this is done for security purposes and the safety of the buyer and the seller.

This payment is Approved but it will stand as payment pending until we receive the shipment reference/tracking number from you.

First off, not only can you note that that paragraph has bad grammar, spacing, punctuation, etc. Second, note the bad email address to you. And third, it’s their last ditch effort to get you to fall for it. Let’s say you’ve been iffy so far. You read this paragraph and go, oh, that’s why there’s no money in my PayPal account yet.

No, it will never be in your account! Real PayPal payment notifications say this on the bottom: “Have you lifted your withdrawal and receiving limits? Just log in to your PayPal account and click View Limits on the Account Overview page. Sincerely, PayPal” At least mine do. But even beyond that, the rest of the email is just clearly not legitimate. Here is the email I got alongside an actual one I received yesterday:

You’ll have to click to get the full images.
I’m sure if you really picked at it you’ll find more reasons the email is not legitimate. Also, sorry for the pixelation, but gotta have privacy. :)

So, anyway, just another reminder, be careful out there! They wouldn’t try to pull this crap if it wasn’t productive to them on some level. And always remember, don’t just click on links in emails claiming to be from PayPal, mouse over them and see what the link really is. But more importantly, just open a new browser window/tab and type in paypal.com.

And in conclusion for me, I’m not out anything. I wasn’t going to mail anything until the money was in my account completely from PayPal anyway.

ARGGGGG!!!

Let’s just say that certain people who I have paid to so something that I was told would be done within 24 hours of payment still haven’t done it after a week. A. WEEK. !!! And let’s just say that because of this, a certain website of mine is really wonky and now it’s refusing to work right and it’s costing me money in areas I can’t afford. So, yay, I get to ship out an order that the cart didn’t charge for shipping, so I make pretty much no money on this one. It’s my site’s fault, so I’m not going to make the customer make up the difference. But if this continues, I’m gonna get screwed big time…

AAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

I’m going to spontaneously combust. Seriously.

Good-bye, cruel world.

x-|

First, I’m highly annoyed that this battery (a 6 cell for my laptop to replace my year old 9 cell that doesn’t really work anymore) doesn’t work. The blasted thing won’t even charge. It started charging and got to 14% then quit. Now it’s stuck at 9%. It’ll go down, of course, but never does it charge up. (My old/current battery, while it doesn’t hold a charge for very long at all, at least it charges.) I emailed the person about this Saturday. And again today, since I’ve had no response despite their claim that they themselves (he himself, whatever) provides a one year warranty on batteries.

And then, they had the nerve to send me this email:

Thank you for purchasing NEW 6-CELL DELL INSPIRON 6400/E1505/1501 GD761 BATTERY. Please leave feedback for me on eBay and I’ll do the same for you. Take this opportunity now and help build a better eBay community.

Is this some kind of automated thing? I really don’t know but I assume that it’s not automated at least to the point that the seller has to say, “hey, send her this email, ’cause I want my feedback.”

I responded that I wasn’t leaving feedback until we worked out the issue that *gasp* the product doesn’t work and I’ve already emailed twice! And then I snidely mentioned how they should have already left feedback for me anyway, after all, I’d held up my part of the bargain: I’ve already paid for the item.

Which brings me to my next point. This has bothered me for years, since I got an Ebay account in 2002.

I hate hate hate hate hate it that power sellers will not leave feedback on a transaction until after the buyer has left them feedback.

I really think it’s downright dirty. Any time I’ve sold something and the buyer has paid up, I’ve left them feedback! Why do these sellers think that they have the right to withhold their feedback until I’ve left them some feedback? Of course, this leaves me wondering on those iffy transactions if I should leave that neutral or negative feedback because what if out of spite they turn around and ruin my 100% rating?

It’s just really aggravated me, apparently, for 6 years now. Just seems to be so dishonest to me.

/rant.

Guess I’ll keep emailing this guy about the battery not working for the rest of the week and then I guess maybe I can take things up with PayPal (supposedly they’re supposed to back you up in situations like this) and then risk it all by leaving him some negative feedback.

It all really turns me off, though. I had hoped to at least get a somewhat decent battery from Ebay — I know I wasn’t going to get something that was “cream of the crop” but something that was worth $60, or so I’d hoped. I really don’t want to buy a brand new one directly from Dell. The 9 cell (which is what I really want) is $300 and the 6 cell is $150. I have paid off all of my Dell bills and I really don’t want to be adding more to it. But there are situations in which I need some good battery power, something to last me at least an hour and a half, preferably 5 hours like my 9 cell did in the early days! Sigh.

Oh! But also, the auction/buy it now says flat out that it is a DELL battery yet the battery is not a DELL battery it’s something else that fits a Dell computer. That’s false advertising and grounds for a claim, right? This guy has exactly 3.5 days before I start filing claims everywhere. :P