Broadband Tech > Security > Scam and Phishbusters > Steele vs Paypal - Hoax or Not - You Make the Call

Steele vs Paypal - Hoax or Not - You Make the Call

I guess I question why you wouldn't open the email.

Might be informative to the users here if they knew what the body of the email stated.

reply to Blue2
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Subject: Federal Court's Notice of Proposed Class Action Settlement. Please Read.
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:16:59 -0400
To: me
From: steelesettlement@tgcginc.com
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Steele et al. v. PayPal, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 1:05-CV-01720 (ILG)(VVP)

Notice from Federal Court. Please Read.

You may be eligible to receive a benefit from a class action settlement if
you funded a PayPal transaction using a source other than your credit card
between February 1, 2004 and the present.

A federal court has directed that this notice be sent to inform you of a
proposed class action settlement. Records show that you may be eligible to
receive a benefit under the proposed settlement.

The settlement will resolve a lawsuit against eBay Inc. and PayPal, Inc.
(collectively, "Defendants") involving claims arising out of representations
in the PayPal User Agreement regarding PayPal's policies and practices for
responding to refund requests from those customers who pay for transactions
through PayPal using funds from funding sources other than credit cards.
Under the settlement, Defendants have agreed to establish a settlement fund
of $3.5 million to pay claims to potential class members. The proposed Class
is defined as:

all U.S. based PayPal account holders who funded a PayPal transaction after
February 1, 2004, using a source other than a credit card: (i) who
subsequently requested a reversal of the transaction through PayPal's
prevailing Buyer Complaint Policy and/or Buyer Protection Policy
(collectively, "Policies"); (ii) who did not receive a refund equal to 100%
of their transaction payment in response to such request from PayPal or their
bank; and (iii) who, through the timely submission of a Claim Form under
oath, attest to a reasonable and good faith belief that they would have
received a full reversal of such payment had they used a valid credit card in
their possession at the time of the subject transaction to fund the payment
and filed a timely chargeback request with their credit card issuing bank.
Excluded from the Class are any judicial officer to whom this Litigation is
assigned; PayPal, eBay and any of its affiliates; any current or former
employees, officers, or directors of PayPal or eBay; any Persons currently
residing outside of the United States; and, all Persons who timely and
validly request exclusion from the Class pursuant to the Notice.

To see if you are a Class Member and to obtain full notice of the Settlement,
the required procedures, the deadlines, your obligations, and your options,
you must visit www.steelesettlement.com. This email is only a brief summary
of the full notice that is posted on the website.

If you are an eligible Settlement Class Member, you have rights, obligations,
and options under the proposed settlement. You have until December 14, 2008
to file your Claim Form and Certification Form. Your legal rights are
affected whether you act or not.

1. Submit The Claim Form And The Certification Form By Mail

This is the only way to get a settlement payment. You must: (1) print and
fill out the Claim Form and return it by mail to the address provided on the
Claim Form; and (2) print the Certification Page of your Claim Form, sign it,
and return it by mail to the address provided on the Claim Form. Your Claim
Form and signed Certification Page must be mailed and postmarked no later
than December 14, 2008. For more information on these deadlines, the
Effective Date of the settlement, the Claim Form procedures, and the
settlement benefit, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com.

2. Exclude Yourself – Opt Out of the Settlement

If you do not want to remain a member of the Class and participate in the
Amended Settlement, then you may exclude yourself (opt-out) from the Class by
mailing or delivering (email is not permitted) your written request. Your
original, signed request for exclusion must be RECEIVED on or before October
31, 2008 and mailed to the following address:

PayPal/Steele Class Action Settlement
c/o The Garden City Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 9309
Dublin, OH 43017-4209

Your request for exclusion must contain your name and address, be signed by
you, and include the reference "Steele et al. v. PayPal, Inc. et al., Civil
Action No. 1:05-CV-01720." If you exclude yourself from the Class, you will
not participate in the Amended Settlement and will not receive any payment
from the Amended Settlement.

3. Object

Write to the Court about why you do not like the settlement. Your objection
must be filed with the Clerk of the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn Main Office, 225 Cadman Plaza East,
Brooklyn, New York 11201, no later than October 31, 2008. Pursuant to the
Court's Order, you may not be heard on or entitled to contest the Court's
decision unless you have filed written objections no later than October 31,
2008. A hearing ("Settlement Hearing") shall be held before Hon. I Leo
Glasser on November 17, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. at the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of New York, Courtroom 8B South, 225 Cadman
Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York 11201.

4. Do Nothing

You will automatically be included in the Settlement Class and give up your
right to be part of any other lawsuit about the claims in this case, but you
will not be eligible to receive a settlement benefit unless you submit a
Claim Form.

To get complete information about the proposed Settlement, the required
procedures, the deadlines, your obligations, and your options, you must visit
www.steelesettlement.com.

Please do not contact PayPal, or PayPal's customer support about this Notice,
or the Settlement. Instead, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com for
complete information about the proposed Settlement, the required procedures,
the deadlines, your obligations, and your options.

Please do not reply to this message. We are unable to respond to inquiries
sent in reply to this email. To contact us, please access the official
settlement website at www.steelesettlement.com.

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Steele et al. v. PayPal, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 1:05-CV-01720 (ILG)(VVP)

Notice from Federal Court. Please Read.

You may be eligible to receive a benefit from a class action settlement if you funded a PayPal transaction using a source other than your credit card between February 1, 2004 and the present.

A federal court has directed that this notice be sent to inform you of a proposed class action settlement. Records show that you may be eligible to receive a benefit under the proposed settlement.

The settlement will resolve a lawsuit against eBay Inc. and PayPal, Inc. (collectively, "Defendants") involving claims arising out of representations in the PayPal User Agreement regarding PayPal's policies and practices for responding to refund requests from those customers who pay for transactions through PayPal using funds from funding sources other than credit cards. Under the settlement, Defendants have agreed to establish a settlement fund of $3.5 million to pay claims to potential class members. The proposed Class is defined as:

all U.S. based PayPal account holders who funded a PayPal transaction after February 1, 2004, using a source other than a credit card: (i) who subsequently requested a reversal of the transaction through PayPal's prevailing Buyer Complaint Policy and/or Buyer Protection Policy (collectively, "Policies"); (ii) who did not receive a refund equal to 100% of their transaction payment in response to such request from PayPal or their bank; and (iii) who, through the timely submission of a Claim Form under oath, attest to a reasonable and good faith belief that they would have received a full reversal of such payment had they used a valid credit card in their possession at the time of the subject transaction to fund the payment and filed a timely chargeback request with their credit card issuing bank. Excluded from the Class are any judicial officer to whom this Litigation is assigned; PayPal, eBay and any of its affiliates; any current or former employees, officers, or directors of PayPal or eBay; any Persons currently residing outside of the United States; and, all Persons who timely and validly request exclusion from the Class pursuant to the Notice.

To see if you are a Class Member and to obtain full notice of the Settlement, the required procedures, the deadlines, your obligations, and your options, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com. This email is only a brief summary of the full notice that is posted on the website.

If you are an eligible Settlement Class Member, you have rights, obligations, and options under the proposed settlement. You have until December 14, 2008 to file your Claim Form and Certification Form. Your legal rights are affected whether you act or not.

1.     Submit The Claim Form And The Certification Form By Mail

This is the only way to get a settlement payment. You must: (1) print and fill out the Claim Form and return it by mail to the address provided on the Claim Form; and (2) print the Certification Page of your Claim Form, sign it, and return it by mail to the address provided on the Claim Form. Your Claim Form and signed Certification Page must be mailed and postmarked no later than December 14, 2008. For more information on these deadlines, the Effective Date of the settlement, the Claim Form procedures, and the settlement benefit, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com.

2.     Exclude Yourself – Opt Out of the Settlement

If you do not want to remain a member of the Class and participate in the Amended Settlement, then you may exclude yourself (opt-out) from the Class by mailing or delivering (email is not permitted) your written request. Your original, signed request for exclusion must be RECEIVED on or before October 31, 2008 and mailed to the following address:


PayPal/Steele Class Action Settlement

c/o The Garden City Group, Inc.

P.O. Box 9309

Dublin, OH 43017-4209



Your request for exclusion must contain your name and address, be signed by you, and include the reference "Steele et al. v. PayPal, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 1:05-CV-01720." If you exclude yourself from the Class, you will not participate in the Amended Settlement and will not receive any payment from the Amended Settlement.

3.     Object

Write to the Court about why you do not like the settlement. Your objection must be filed with the Clerk of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn Main Office, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York 11201, no later than October 31, 2008. Pursuant to the Court's Order, you may not be heard on or entitled to contest the Court's decision unless you have filed written objections no later than October 31, 2008. A hearing ("Settlement Hearing") shall be held before Hon. I Leo Glasser on November 17, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Courtroom 8B South, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York 11201.

4.     Do Nothing

You will automatically be included in the Settlement Class and give up your right to be part of any other lawsuit about the claims in this case, but you will not be eligible to receive a settlement benefit unless you submit a Claim Form.

To get complete information about the proposed Settlement, the required procedures, the deadlines, your obligations, and your options, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com.

Please do not contact PayPal, or PayPal's customer support about this Notice, or the Settlement. Instead, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com for complete information about the proposed Settlement, the required procedures, the deadlines, your obligations, and your options.

Please do not reply to this message. We are unable to respond to inquiries sent in reply to this email. To contact us, please access the official settlement website at www.steelesettlement.com.

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(altered one line to fix blown margin- moderator)
--
Some people are like slinkies - not really good for much.
But they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.

The headers show that the mail was sent from mail2.tgcginc.com, and domain tgcginc.com is owned by the Garden City Group. The domain has existed since 1999. At a guess "tcgcinc" is shorthand for "The Garden City Group, Inc".

The web pages listed in the mail also belong to the Garden City Group. Apparently the Garden City Group's business is in handling class action settlements.

The evidence from the email points to it's probably being legit.

Of course, if you are part of the class (of the class action suit), then you should have other information which you should also check to see if it corroborates what is in the mailing.
--
AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; openSuSE 11.0; firefox 3.0.1

reply to Blue2

Who is info - Created 1 Aug ???

reply to Blue2

Re: Steele vs Paypal - Hoax or Not - You Make the Call

reply to nwrickert
Yes, the Registrant is indicated as:
Garden City Group
105 Maxess Road
Melville, New York 11747
United States

While the email suggests that contact be made here:
Your original, signed request for exclusion must be RECEIVED on or before October 31, 2008 and mailed to the following address:
PayPal/Steele Class Action Settlement
c/o The Garden City Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 9309
Dublin, OH 43017-4209

amysheehan also pointed out that this website was registered on 1 August 2008. That does not add credibility.

If you followed the link I posted, it indicated that users who contacted Paypal received the following reply:
"I forwarded the email to spoof@paypal.com, they replied:

Dear ,

Thanks for taking an active role by reporting suspicious-looking emails.
The email you forwarded to us is a phishing email, and our security team is working to disable it.

There you have it."

While others indicated:
"Just got it myself, and first clue to this being a scam is typo’s in the text. such as the following taken for the Benefits to the Class section.. “using a source other than a credit car and..."

I might add that The Garden City Group worked on a class action suit against Paypal (I was a claimant in that action.) but that case was settled four years ago. If there was a NEW class action lawsuit now years later, one would think the email would be required to come from Paypal rather than a email from "steelesettlement@tgcginc.com".

So, as was the intent of my original post, it's getting harder to tell the real ones from the fakes.

reply to Blue2
It is real and is current.

»www.steelesettlement.com/index.php3

The Court will hold a hearing on November 17, 2008 at 10:00 a.m., before the Honorable I. Leo Glasser, Senior United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York, Courtroom 8B South, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York 11201.

The purpose of the hearing will be to determine: (a) whether the proposed Amended Settlement should be approved as fair, reasonable and adequate; (b) whether the Class should be certified for purposes of the Amended Settlement; (c) whether Class Counsel’s Fee Application should be granted and in what amount; and (d) whether the lawsuit and Class Members’ claims should be dismissed with prejudice pursuant to the Amended Settlement.

reply to Blue2
The filed court documents can be viewed here:
»www.docstoc.com/docs/510652/Stee···t-al---1

reply to Cheese
I would not take the info provided by that site as definitive proof that it is "real" - after all, that is the site in question regarding it's legitimacy. If you check the e-mail's originating IP addresses, you will find them to be fake - how "real" is that?

reply to Blue2

said by "paypal" :

---

The email you forwarded to us is a phishing email, and our security team is working to disable it.

---

reply to COMMAN
Registrant:
Garden City Group
105 Maxess Road
Melville, New York 11747
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (»www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: STEELESETTLEMENT.COM
Created on: 01-Aug-08
Expires on: 01-Aug-10
Last Updated on: 01-Aug-08

Administrative Contact:
Donelan, Dreux vicki.loiacono@gardencitygroup.com
Garden City Group
105 Maxess Road
Melville, New York 11747
United States
(631) 470-6823 Fax --

Technical Contact:
Donelan, Dreux vicki.loiacono@gardencitygroup.com
Garden City Group
105 Maxess Road
Melville, New York 11747
United States
(631) 470-6823 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS47.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS48.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

»www.whois.net/whois_new.cgi?d=st···&tld=com

reply to COMMAN

reply to Blue2
PayPal Announces Settlement Agreements

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 28, 2006 - PayPal today announced that it has signed an agreement with 28 United States Attorneys General. In this voluntary agreement, PayPal will, among other things, shorten and streamline its user agreement and communicate more information relating to its protection programs. PayPal has already complied with many of the terms in the agreement.

To cover the cost of the investigation, PayPal will pay $1.7 million to the Attorneys General. The Attorneys General involved in this agreement represent: Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.

PayPal also announced today that it has reached a preliminary settlement agreement with a proposed class of PayPal customers in an action pending in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The suit was filed in 2005 on behalf of a class alleging that PayPal did not clearly communicate information about its consumer protection programs related to specific types of transactions.

The settlement fund, which will be paid by PayPal, will total $3.5 million, less administrative costs and any amount awarded to plaintiffs' counsel by the court. The settlement will be presented for preliminary approval to the District Court in the coming months.

Under the terms of the settlement agreements, PayPal is not admitting any liability for any of the allegations in the two cases.

Media Contact:
Amanda Pires
PayPal
(408) 967-1005
apires@paypal.com

The original settlement was reached in 2004 as indicated in the is article of July 7, 2004: »news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-137004.html

That settlement included the following which was pointed out at that time:
"The link in the e-mail read "paypal.com," but it redirected surfers to the somewhat spam-sounding settlement4onlinepayments.com. That site is hosted by a company with the suspiciously generic-sounding moniker "The Garden City Group."

Now take a look at what »www.settlement4onlinepayments.com/ looks like today.

So, again, this is a new settlment of a second class action lawsuit, handled by the same GardenCityGroup but now requesting that you contact them in another state with an email from steelesettlement@tgcginc.com? Where did they get the email address database from, Paypal?

Doesn't exactly give one that warm and fuzzy feeling, particularly when they'll need your Paypal account info to disperse the settlement...

reply to Blue2
What I do not like about this 'steelesettlement'' website is that it does not include any 'about us' info and/or an easy way to contact them other than by snail mail.

You'd think there would be more info regarding this outfit available on their site.

-amy-
--
Proud Member of ASAP
DSLR Phishtracker

reply to nwrickert
You are correct - a hasty lookup yielded erroneous info, and I stand corrected - my bad!

Seriously, thanks for double-checking and correcting that.

reply to Blue2
Additionally, this settlement notice on an unrelated class action also gives the address:

The Garden City Group, Inc.,
P.O. Box 9205,
Dublin, OH,
43017-4605,
U.S.A.,
800-961-3319

»www.foxbusiness.com/story/market···77574573
--
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

reply to Blue2

contacts