PayPal scam - don't fall for it

[bacteria]

Got a PayPal scam in email today, which i'm sure many people will fall for; I didn't fall for it, and alerted PayPal about the issue - it turned out many others did too.

This scam is titled from "[email protected]" and looks similar to this:



It is always best practice if in any doubt, to look on your account via normal means (I enter PayPal via Ebay as safe); it will show any legitimate issues, not scams. NEVER click on such links via emails, etc.

I was alerted initially via the fact of the "click to cancel" button as you never get them normally, and the fact the link was to an obscure site - obviously phishing site.

When I phoned PayPal they also confirmed you never get "dear PayPal user" you always get the name.

This scam is better than many, hence this post - i'm sure many trusting people (rather than sceptical like me) will fall for this scam.

[brunoafh]

I suppose it looks better than your "average scam", but if you're a regular user of PayPal it's pretty easy to tell it's obviously a fraud e-mail.

[pureevil]

Thanks for the warning

[Frizz.Meister]

Thats true but the sad thing is these scams work really well. Sure people like us never fall for them but lots of of people do. My sister fell for something like this a couple of months ago simply because it looked correct. I dread to think how many retired persons have lost their savings due to these sorts of emails.

[Hobie-wan]

Or you could just be sent a random invoice for some made up transaction.

http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2011/01/15 ... me-reason/

[dedalusdedalus]

Yeah, definitely a good thing to bring this up. I agree that this scam's "production values" are better than most. The details you mentioned, such as not addressing you by name, are a dead giveaway but might easily be overlooked by someone who just isn't paying much attention.

[Jrecee]

I only go through paypal by typing in the url. Although if I'm on a site paying for something through paypal I'll go through that way.

[d123456]

Thanks for the warning bro.
I haven´t had this but had similar ones before. This one is really nasty.

[bacteria]

Yes, it's nasty because it looks legit.

It's not like a normal one claiming to be from a bank you aren't with, or has spelling errors that make it look fraudulent, this one looks legit which means many people would be conned by it. For me the thing that made it obvious was the "click to cancel" button, which you simply don't get on PayPal transactions - i've done over a thousand transactions on PayPal sending/receiving funds, never seen a "cancel" button...

[Dakinggamer87]

Thanks for heads up!!