Email claims that the recipient's PayPal account will be suspended if he or she does not update account information. Warning: do not follow the links in the email.
This is an email that has been doing the rounds for a few years but I received one myself today and thought it would be a timely reminder for us all. Also, last month, I had a client who actually fell victim to this so I know the worry and upset that this can cause.
The scam email is formatted to look like a genuine PayPal message and includes official looking logos. The message warns recipients that their PayPal account will be suspended if they do not update their personal records. Recipients are instructed to click a link in the email to update their account. The message uses HTML to disguise the link so that it resembles a genuine PayPal web address.
Recipients who click on the bogus link are taken to a fake PayPal login page from which you are asked for personal and payment details.
Information entered into the fake website can then be used by the scammers to access the victim's genuine PayPal account, use the victim's credit card and possibly even steal the victim's identity.
Be wary of any email that asks you to click a link and provide sensitive personal information such as passwords or credit card details. PayPal and other legitimate companies do not request such information from customers in this way. To learn how to recognise phishing scams and effectively protect yourself from this sort of fraud, follow the link below:
As a final comment on this: when I received the email today I 'hovered' over one of the two links and it started: http://www.paypal.com/... which looks like a genuine paypal web page! ALWAYS manually enter the URL (web address) of your bank etc into your browser's address bar; NEVER click links to your bank etc in emails no matter how genuine they seem. Of course, if you have saved your link in your favourites or bookmarks then go ahead and use that link.
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