Well, friends, I almost fell for it–and I want to prevent you from doing the same.
I received an e-mail from (what seemed to be) PayPal, saying that my account had been placed on hold because of a “reason to beleive that your account was accessed by a third party.” See the clever language, below. It looks like PayPal, seems to show the company’s concern for me (thanks, PayPal!) and ties right into a concern people have about online transactions–that somehow, my account was hacked and will be misused.
Guess what–IT’S NOT FROM PAYPAL!
Somehow, I had the presence of mind to call PayPal instead of clicking through the links . . . only to learn that, yes, the e-mail was a spoof. Had it been a real e-mail, it would have been personalized and addressed specifically to me (and not just through my e-mail address).
In any event, save yourself the trouble–should you receive e-mails that ask for account verification, always call the company or institution to find out if it’s legit and, if so, how best to handle it.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 8:09 am and is filed under Horror Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.3 Responses to “Warning! PayPal Spoofing Alert!”
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May 29th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
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June 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
OMG!! I can’t believe this!!! I really like blog. It has a ton of helpful information it. But when I came across this posting I couldn’t believe it. I have a paypal account and although I haven’t received anything like this before, it was still discouraging to know that this is happening. Thanks again for the information. When will people learn?!
July 11th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Dear Yaminah:
We’d like to believe what we see in writing . . . and that we’re dealing with reputable companies. It’s easy to forget that any ol’ scammer can set up a website and email address. It’s worth taking a few extra minutes to do your “due diligence” to make sure you don’t get “taken”.