My Paypal Account is Fine

We all have to be careful online, especially with the Internet. Kevin Roderick shared his Paypal message today, so I thought I would do likewise, with a twist. I used Arin Whois to see where this message originated.

Dear sir,

It has come to our attention that your PayPal® account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.

However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension. Please update your records before September 22, 2006.

Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal® account activity will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

Here's how you can trace a bogus email. Highlight or read the message, click on file, then properties, and details. Now click on message source, and you will see the IP address. Go to Arin Whois and enter the IP number, this will give you the details of the Internet Service Provider.

Here's the results for my bogus Paypal message from IP 204.113.238.250

OrgName: Utah Educational Network
OrgID: UEN-1
Address: 101 Wasatch Drive, Rm 215
City: Salt Lake City
StateProv: UT
PostalCode: 84112
Country: US

NetRange: 204.113.0.0 - 204.113.255.255
CIDR: 204.113.0.0/16
NetName: WESTNETUT
NetHandle: NET-204-113-0-0-1
Parent: NET-204-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: NS.UEN.NET
NameServer: NS2.UEN.NET
Comment: RegDate: 1994-08-08
Updated: 2001-08-23

RTechHandle: ZU35-ARIN
RTechName: Network HostMaster
RTechPhone: +1-801-585-7440
RTechEmail: hostmaster@uen.org

OrgTechHandle: PK372-ARIN
OrgTechName: Kruckenberg, Pete
OrgTechPhone: +1-801-585-9034
OrgTechEmail: pete@uen.org

#ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-10-17 19:10
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If contact information is out of date or incorrect, please contact hostmaster@arin.net. Include all relevant information in your e-mail and ARIN will investigate the matter.