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PayPal Signup
and security alert
What is PayPal? It is a free money-transfer service. It allows any of us with a Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express card, or bank account to securely transfer funds electronically. The cost of transfering the funds to a business like Mindbird Maps & Books is borne by the business itself—but it is minimal, and we think it is a good deal all around.
Better yet, PayPal has also given us the means to set up a shopping cart. We've looked into the cost of having online ordering off and on since this site was created in June 2000, and could never justify the $150 plus per month fees other providers charge. But PayPay's shopping cart is free to us. The more sales we get, the more they get on commissions, so it was in their interest to do this.
We have PayPal "Add to Cart" buttons below all of our item descriptions. Clicking on the button will take you through the simple online order process. If you change your mind about a particular item, you can adjust quantities or remove the item from your shopping cart at any time before you check out.
But keep in mind that the PayPal shopping cart is only a shopping cart. It is only a system designed to ease your order process by communicating what you want to order to Mindbird and transferring your funds securely to us. It is not linked to an inventory system and will let you order more of an item than is available. It also tells you nothing about our terms of sale, returns policy, shipping times, methods, and other essential details of transacting business. These you must read on our How to Order page.
You are always welcome to order the old-fashioned ways by phone, fax, mail, or walk-in orders, but the PayPal shopping cart is particularly convenient for those who do their shopping late at night and just want to get it done.
One down side to the PayPal shopping cart is that it is not sophisticated enough to calculate fees for all possible combinations of the merchandise we sell. Most importantly: Since rolled maps are sent in tubes, and need to be shipped separately from almost everything else we sell, a separate shipping fee is required. The PayPal shopping cart will not alert you to this, though it is clearly stated in the descriptions of applicable items. Please do not order rolled maps in the same transaction as any other type of item; order them separately. (Raised relief maps are shipped flat, not rolled, and maps that are sent folded are clearly marked as such in the descriptions.) Also, proper fees are not collected for raised relief maps sent to remote parts of Alaska or Hawai'i. See the How to Order page for all details on shipping rates.
To sign up for PayPal—even if you never intend to order from this website—click on the link below:
Security Alert
Warning! There are con artists who send out mass emails with copies of PayPal's logos and information and attempt to scam you, a practice known as "phishing". They try to get you to download attachments they send with the email or to induce you to log in to bogus websites where they can gather your personal financial information. They even copy PayPal's security warnings. If you have been using email for some time, this kind of scam will be familiar to you, since scammers make similar mischief trying to impersonate bank and credit union websites. If you are new to email, read on.
If you think you don't like PayPal because they are always sending you emails, you are blaming the victim. PayPal does not send out spam, and if you have not done business using PayPal, it is highly probable that all of the emails you have received that seemed to be from PayPal are con artists phishing for your financial information.
Here are some past examples: One con (I received two emails on 10 February 2003) purports to be a program for "LIVE 24/7 support" from a "PayPal Tech Support Operator." It included an attachment which would no doubt attempt to induce you to give them your password, so they could access your account and steal your money!
Here are some past examples: One con (I received two emails on 10 February 2003) purports to be a program for "LIVE 24/7 support" from a "PayPal Tech Support Operator." It included an attachment which would no doubt attempt to induce you to give them your password, so they could access your account and steal your money!
Another one (21 February 2003) was titled: "PayPal Security Tracker", and included this text (copied with misspellings):
Due to arecent increase in fraudulant transactions, we are asking all PayPal users to install our new tracking software, attached to this message. The purpose of this is the help us in tracking who funds are sent by, therefor allowing us to more easily distinguish transations using fraudulant funds. Our users security is important to us, and we are doing this to try to keep you safe from fraud.
Thank you for using PayPal
A past con was called "PayPal at Home" which they claimed was software that all users would be required to install.
There have been numerous other scams. One I received twice on 7 July 2003 and again on 12 July 2003. It was the most sophisticated con I had seen to date. While they didn't copy PayPal's logos, they do copy their security warnings and have used a link which does begin with "https://www.paypal.com". But notice that there is not a backslash after the ".com". The web address continues with a colon (:) and then gives some long gobbledegook which superficially appears to be an individual page, ending in your email address. The message gives a bogus reason for wanting you to click on the link: "becaurse some of our members no longer have access to their email addresses and we must verify it". You can tell it is bogus because you can go directly to your PayPal account and you will have no trouble logging on. If they really wanted you to re-verify your information, they would ask you then. And notice how they misspelled "because"—a typical mistake, though someday these scammers will learn how to spell, so don't count on misspellings in future cons.
Here is the full text of the 7 July 2003 con email (I have deleted part of the link they included):
Dear PayPal Member,
This email was sent by the PayPal server to re-verify your e-mail address
and to update your profile information on PayPal. You must complete
this process by clicking on the link below and entering the information
from your profile. This is done for your protection — becaurse some of our
members no longer have access to their email addresses and we must verify it.
To update your profile information and access your account,
click on the link below. If nothing happens when you click on the
link (or if you use AOL), copy and paste the link into the address bar of
your web browser.
https://www.paypal.com:ac=AwWI5H ...
The link will take you to our Verify Your Identity page. Fill in the
appropriate fields to update your profile information and Security
Questions, and click Submit. You will then be able to access your account.
Thanks for using PayPal!
Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be
answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the
"Help" link in the footer of any page.
----------------------------------------------------------------
PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD
NEVER give your password to anyone and ONLY log in at
https://www.paypal.com. Protect yourself against fraudulent
websites by checking the URL/Address bar every time you log in.
----------------------------------------------------------------
On 8 July 2003 I received another scam email purporting to be from PayPal. It was titled "PayPal Server Update 7/8/2003" and claims that we the user need to download a "patch" for their "new server." The explanation accompanying it is complete garbage. For one, a high-volume site like PayPal doubtless has numerous internet servers, the servers have little or nothing to do with supposed added features to the site, and website upgrades of any kind would never require you to download any kind of "patch." This scam is accompanied by copies of PayPal's logos and warnings, it includes links to non-PayPal sites which attempt to fool you that they are PayPal links by including fragments of PayPal's legitimate https://www.paypal.com address, and includes the usual misspellings and grammatical errors in the parts they did not copy wholesale from PayPal mailings.
Here is the text, omitting portions copied from PayPal standard text. I won't point out specific typos in case a scammer reads this web page and would use it as a guide to making corrections for a more convincing con!
Dear PayPal Member,
In an effort to maintain an optimum level of quality on our site PayPal has now switched servers. The new server has incorporated all-new features including a new and easier PayPal checkout system. And an on-site ebay/paypal shops search for all your desired goods. We have fixed certain loading issues aswell, the site is running faster than ever!
The attached file is the patch for our server. Please make an effort to join our server as soon as possible, the old server will be unavailable on July 10th. To activate the server, simply download Ppsnew.zip and use any version of WinZip or your operating systems extracting tool. Install the patch and agree to the terms of service and your the newest member of our server! The new server does not charge fees or extra sign-up to use. It is a free update from the old version of PayPal. If you have any questions please send them to Patch@paypal.com
With best regards,
John Hassek
PayPal Support
support@paypal.com
The scam attempts change each month. Here's one I received on 21 August 2007, under the subject line "Warning Notice !":
Dear PayPal member,
During our Security and Resolution Center regular maintainance it has come to our attention that your PayPal Billing Information is out of date. The update process is a very simple and fast one and it must be completed immediately in order to avoid any future issues - Terms of Service (TOS) violations, cancellation of service, account suspension
or even account termination.
This process is mandatory, and if not completed within the nearest time your account may be subject for temporary suspension.
To securely confirm your information please click on the link bellow:
http://www.paypaless.com
We encourage you to log in and perform the steps necessary to restore your account access as soon as possible.
Copyright © 2007 PayPal Inc. All Rights Reserved
Notice that they don't even hide the bogus link, adding an "-ess" to PayPal's domain name that they hope you will overlook. It is actually quite easy for them to display the correct domain name on a link, while writing the link so that it actually sends you to a different website if you click on it. It is risky to even open and read an email from a suspicious source like this one, for some of them contain viruses that will only be stopped if you have excellent security software installed. (I viewed this one by the only safe means, by viewing the message's "Source Code" without opening it, in a text editor on Internet Explorer.)
PayPal does send legitimate emails to members, so how do you tell the difference between the real thing and a con? First, PayPal NEVER sends attachments to download. Second, if PayPal is telling you about any changes in terms you may need to take care of, they will refer you to your website account. If the email gives you a link, it MUST begin with "https" (notice that "s", for "secure"): https://www.paypal.com. (But see above for a scam that used the "https.") The scammers sometimes refer you to their own website which may have the PayPal name in the web address, but it will begin with the insecure "http", not "https".
The real PayPal will only direct you to their secure website for any transactions that need your password. Also, the real PayPal emails have a fine print section at the bottom which tell you why you are receiving the emails (i.e. you are signed up for their service) and have your own email address embedded in the section. The fakes haven't been able to figure out how to do this (yet).
Also, the con emails often have typos: incorrect spelling, missing spaces, or amateurish grammar (this is evident in the "PayPal Security Tracker" example shown above—unless English is not your first language or if you are not very literate). And if you've read a lot of the genuine PayPal messages, you can detect a difference in tone in the cons. One con message said something about how, after downloading their software, you could "sit back and laugh" at the way PayPal used to do business. That phrase is completely out of character with PayPal's basically upbeat, but serious tone.
If in doubt, you can and should log on to the real PayPal website, not using any links in the questionable email, and see if there are any announcements in the "What's New" section confirming the email information. In my experience, real PayPal emails won't tell you anything important that you can't access on their website.
Original content copyright © Lee Dittmann of Mindbird Maps & Books.
Images may be copyright © by the creator of the items depicted. Essential ordering details, including phone, fax, mail, and online options, shipping fees and delivery times, returns, special orders, privacy policy, and more are described on the How to Order page. |