A SCAM email appearing to be from PayPal is doing the rounds once again, with the usual dodgy links.
Many people use PayPal and are very familiar with the company. Criminals rely on this familiarity and send emails that appear to be from PayPal. Although the email may look like it’s from PayPal Services, these are usually phishing scams, looking to get your personal information or payment details so that money or information can be stolen from you.
However, there are some simple ways to identify these scam emails.
If you hover over the email address or push reply to check it, you will be able to see if it’s from an unknown address like shguht@paymail.com.
Examples of these emails include:
“Your account has been suspended”
"Your account is about to be suspended."
"You've been paid."
"You have been paid too much."
If the message is straight from PayPal itself, here’s how to identify a real PayPal email:
An email from PayPal will always come from paypal.com. As you can see in the example above, it’s easy to fake the friendly name, but the full address can’t be spoofed. So regardless of what the friendly name may say, always check the address that the email was sent from. If it originates from any domain other than PayPal.com, it’s not authentic.
An email from PayPal will always address you by your first and last name, or your business name. “Greetings, Dear Client” is definitely not something PayPal would say. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’d have to go back to Charles Dickens’ England, (or a modern-day Nigerian Prince with money to give away) to hear anyone say that in polite conversation.
PayPal will NEVER:
Send an email asking you to confirm or supply sensitive information such as a password, banking information or debit/credit card data.
Send an email containing any attachments.
Send an email asking you to download or install software.
Here’s a good rule of thumb:
If you are unsure that an email is actually from PayPal, go to the PayPal website and log in in your usual way. Do not use any links in the email!
If PayPal really was trying to communicate with you, chances are you’ll see something when you log in. If not, just disregard it.
For personal advice about this article, or any other financial subject, please do not hesitate to contact me
You can view and download a pdf version of this article here
The full library of Blog article PDF files can be found here