Real e-Mail from PayPal

[Cheshire Figment]

Today I received an e-mail from PayPal that said that my backup credit card had expired. I noted three things in their message which led me to believe it was true.

1. Instead of a bland "Dear Customer" it had my full name in the body of the message.

2. It actually gave the last four digits of the credit card number.

3. There were no links at all in the message. I was told to log in to PayPal as I normally would and then it gave several steps to follow once I was in.

I did log in through a bookmark and saw that the expiration date on the credit card was 5/05 and so I looked at my new card and made the necessary changes. Anyway, my account is now up to date and I have not been phished.

 

[got2travel]

Yes, we do sometimes get real emails like this. The safest thing to do is never follow links. Go directly to the site that supposedly sent you the email and check your account. Just like you did. There is so much junk out there, you can never be too careful.

 

[etwinchester]

If it was a fraud, it more than likely would have contained a LINK in the email. Paypal and eBay both will tell you to log onto the website.

 

[Cass]

If you 'view the source' of a fake paypal letter you will see a whole bunch of coding that and usually something like HELO @ hotmail.

Those phishers should be shot!

 

[mavanilly]

You can forward the email in question to spoof@ebay.com and they will respond in an email telling you whether or not it is genuine. I have used it many times and 99% of the time, the item did not originate from Ebay or Pay Pal.

 

[ceecee]

If your expiration date on your charge expires, they do need to update it. I had an unverfied and unconfirmed address for a while and that was the reason.

 

[Mom2Ashli]

I don't even have a paypal account and have never used ebay. And I received and e-mail the other stated that me or someone else has been using my paypal account to make false bids. There was a link to follow to clear it up. But no contact information. I just deleted it.

 

[lazarru]

Another thing that's a major clue is if you follow a link and put garbage in both the UserID and password fields and it still logs you in and asks for your credit card. Got one the other day and did that to test it out, yea so they don't know who I am, but give me your CC anyway

 

[Cheshire Figment]

Another thing that's a major clue is if you follow a link and put garbage in both the UserID and password fields and it still logs you in and asks for your credit card. Got one the other day and did that to test it out, yea so they don't know who I am, but give me your CC anyway

The dangerous thing about clicking on such a link is the site can plant malicious cookies or bots on your hard drive. This can then transmit other (or future) information to that site.
As an experiment I ran "Spybot Search and Destroy" twice on my computer, the first time it cleared a few items and the second time said I was clear. Then I clicked on a link to put in phony information. After exiting running Spybot again found and cleared five new items.

 

[Jakesmom1]

I got the same email, and I dont even have a paypal acct. I just deleted it.

 

[TheDuckMan]

I have recieved emails like this telling me there is unusual activity on your account with a link in the email. I know these are fakes but I was wondering if there is any legal action you could take toward these people trying to steal your information.......