PayPal sent me a strange email today, or could it be scam?

BertieUK
BertieUK Posts: 1,701 Forumite
in Ebay, auctions, car boot sales, post & parcels
I received an email from PayPal, they claim, with the following content.

I am not going to follow the instruction of downloading anything as I feel uncomfortable especially when I use my account regularly. Any advice would be welcome than you

Regards
Bob



We need your help resolving an issue with your account :


Dear ,

To give us time to work together on this, we've temporarily limited what you can do with your account until the issue is resolved.

We understand it may be frustrating not to have full access to your PayPal account.we want to work with you to get your account back to normal as quickly as possible.

What's the problem ?

It's been a little while since you used your account.For reasons relating to the safe use of the PayPal service we need some more information about your account.

Case number: PP-001-107-777-703

It's usually quite straight forward to take care of these things.Most of the time, we just need some more information about your account! or latest transactions.

1.Download the attached document and open it in a browser window secure.2.Confirm that you are the account holder and follow the instructions


Thank you for your cooperation.
Yours sincerely, Protection Services Department.
«1

Comments

  • KxMx
    KxMx Posts: 10,591 Forumite
    First Post Name Dropper First Anniversary Photogenic
    Scam, it doesn't address you by name I presume? And mentions you haven't used your account in a while when you know that's false?

    All you have to do to check is open a new internet tab, search for Paypal via google and log-on to your account that way.

    I bet all will be fine :)
  • BertieUK
    BertieUK Posts: 1,701 Forumite
    edited 4 December 2012 at 6:50PM
    KxMx wrote: »
    Scam, it doesn't address you by name I presume? And mentions you haven't used your account in a while when you know that's false?

    All you have to do to check is open a new internet tab, search for Paypal via google and log-on to your account that way.

    I bet all will be fine :)

    They did not address me by name, what I have posted is exactly what I received.

    Being a pensioner things like this can be scary, but I will follow your advice.

    Kind regards
    Bob

    Where do they get my email address from I wonder?
  • KxMx
    KxMx Posts: 10,591 Forumite
    First Post Name Dropper First Anniversary Photogenic
    PayPal always addresses customers by name for exactly this reason, as does eBay.

    The scammers/phishers send out these mails to thousands of addresses, knowing at some point they will reach someone with an account, just like the banking ones.

    I know they can be scary but just delete them.

    In time you'll be able to spot them from just the subject line and won't even need to open them before deleting.
  • challengedavid
    challengedavid Posts: 235 Forumite
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    i get them daily, as long as you log in via the proper site you will see no problems here is one i recieved the other day


    [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Dear PayPal user,

    We recently received a report of unauthorized credit card payment attempt
    associated with this account. To protect you against any further unauthorised
    payment attempts, we've limited access to your PayPal account. Please take
    a minute to review the details below and what steps you need to take to
    remove the limits.
    Details of disputed transaction


    Case ID Number: PP-001-546-712-069
    What to do next

    Please download the form attached to this email and open it in a web browser.
    Once opened, you will be provided with steps to restore your account access.
    We appreciate your understanding as we work to ensure your account safety.
    Due dates

    Please get back to us as soon as possible.


    [/FONT]
  • MadelinesMum
    MadelinesMum Posts: 862 Forumite
    Forward the email to spoof@paypal.com and they usually reply with an email telling you whether it's a scam or not.
    Good luck
    I must remember that "Money Saving" is not buying heavily discounted items that I do not need. :hello:
  • cestlavie
    cestlavie Posts: 805 Forumite
    if they don't address you by yr full name it's the first indicator of a scam and i instantly send to spoof paypal people, however i've not had a reply from them in ages - maybe cos i must pass a scam on to them so often. the other way to tell is to find the source of the email, depending on how yr email works this is often quite easy to do, you'll get a page of generally convoluted words if you aren't a techie (which i'm not) but which you can decipher that the email was never sent direct from paypal, but by various other emails etc.

    the second course of action i would take, if i was being overly cautious, would be to delete all my cookies, run a scan and then once it came back clear, i'd log into my paypal account which would then tell me a different story to the one the scam email was purporting to scare me of and scam me with etc.
  • Goldiegirl
    Goldiegirl Posts: 8,805 Forumite
    First Anniversary First Post Rampant Recycler Hung up my suit!
    If it didn't address you by name in the body of the email it's a definate phishing attempt or scam.

    It is unsettling to get those emails, but if you look out for tell tale signs like poor spelling and being addressed as Dear Customer, you can pick out the scams easily.

    With PayPal I never click on a link from an email, I always type the web address into the browser.
    Early retired - 18th December 2014
    If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough
  • baggers02
    baggers02 Posts: 146 Forumite
    Anything that asks you to download something is dodgy.

    Also a good way to check is if their is a link in the email hover the cursor over it and it will show the address the link will go to, normally its not paypal.com!

    As mentioned in a previous post spoof@paypal.com are good at getting back to you as to the nature of the email.
  • mike6265
    mike6265 Posts: 26 Forumite
    First Anniversary First Post Combo Breaker
    edited 20 December 2012 at 2:54PM
    I have just received an email exactly the same as in post 1

    including Case number: 001-107-777-703

    I opened the attachment but did not respond and have now deleted it. I have also run various scans.

    Is there a chance of a virus in this? or is it just after me accessing passwords etc.

    Mike

    also have reported this to [EMAIL="spoof@paypal.com"]spoof@paypal.com[/EMAIL]
  • BertieUK
    BertieUK Posts: 1,701 Forumite
    mike6265 wrote: »
    I have just received an email exactly the same as in post 1

    including Case number: 001-107-777-703

    I opened the attachment but did not respond and have now deleted it. I have also run various scans.

    Is there a chance of a virus in this? or is it just after me accessing passwords etc.

    Mike

    also have reported this to [EMAIL="spoof@paypal.com"]spoof@paypal.com[/EMAIL]

    Exactly as I did except I did not take the chance on opening the email.

    I would run a Full Scan on your system just to be sure that a virus was not present.

    What did the E-mail contain?
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