Elliott Rodgers

There are a large number of scam emails circulating at the moment claiming to be from PayPal and that a new email has been added to your account and inviting you to click on a link to restore the original account email. This is a live and active threat currently running (as of 16:24 BST, 26th July 2011).

The domain names used by the scammers so far have included paypalinfo.com (an example including this email is shown below) and paypalf.com

Hovering the mouse over the link reveals it’s destination…. which far from being a server at PayPal is in reality part of some low life scammers network in China trying to con people into entering their PayPal details so the scammers can rip them off.

http://219.138.170.167/setting.files/www/index.html

The part of the URL in red is direct to the scammers computer and the part in blue, what the scammers want you to run, not only could this be a phishing attempt, it could create all sorts of other chaos on your computer.

Please share this alert with friends and family

There’s a huge amount of dodgy scam emails allegedly offering a tax refund, these are scams. HM Revenue and Customs aren’t going to randomly discover your email address and then send you a tax refund.

If you get sent one of these phishing emails you can forward it to HMRC via phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk, more information on the HMRC website http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/security/phishing-emails.htm.

If you want other emails to report phishing scams, I’ve gathered a collection of email addresses to report phishing emails.

There are currently emails circulating claiming to be from Bobijou, these emails have a zip file attachment containing a .exe file with a trojan virus and phishing attempt. If you have opened the attachment you will need to run a full anti virus scan. If you need a decent, free anti virus we suggest AVG Free Anti Virus.

Below is a sample of the e-mail. The number value on the subject appears to be a counter, incrementing with every email they send. It may also be an attempt to make filtering the email harder.

Sample email:

Once more information is available, this will be added to this post.

There is a current scam doing the rounds which tries to claim to be from the UK Taxman. It’s not a very good email but that doesn’t mean people wont fall for it. If you get sent one you can forward with complete headers to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk

I maintain a list of emails/links to report phishing emails

Here’s a list of places to report phishing and fraud emails. I’ll try my best to keep this list updated and I’ll be adding to it all the time. If you have the details for reporting a phishing email for a UK bank or other organisation I haven’t included then please send me details either in the comments or via the Contact Form.

If you are reporting a phishing email remember to include full email headers.

I make it my habit to always report ALL phishing emails so if you fancy including me or any email address at www.elliottrodgers.com or any site I am responsible for in phishing scams please feel free.

There is also a reporting page at the Anti Phishing Working Group website.

Please don’t leave copies of phishing emails in the comments – thanks!