There is a bogus email going around purporting to be from PayPal notifying you of charges that you did not authorize. Of course it has a “helpful” link for you to click and cancel the charges. But can you guess what happens if you click the link? You can try it but I’m not going to! I looked up some information and discovered this is not from PayPal and is, in fact, a scam. A copy of the email is included below. Also, please see the comment from John Erickson where he explains how you can check out suspicious looking emails. Thanks John!
4 thoughts on “Beware of this PayPal Spear Phishing Scam – I Just Got One!”
You must log in to post a comment.
If you get a suspicious Email, you can go to the “File” dropdown on your Email program, then click on “Properties”. It should show you a tab with “details” – click on that, then read through the text. Most will be incomprehensible tech jargon, but you will see a line that contains the “from” address. If this doesn’t look like any website you know – and most phish attempts will have an address ending in a non-US country code (like .za for South Africa, the only one that generates a lot of these I can think of). If it doesn’t look legit, or if it’s a Yahoo or Google or other easy-to-get Email service, DELETE IT! Trust me, Paypal or Citicorp can afford their OWN domain names – they do NOT use GMail to communicate with their customers.
I’ll try to remember your post when I get the next one, and I’ll post the example. I don’t have one laying around right now – I delete them with EXTREME prejudice! š
Thank you John, that is great advice!
John, I updated the blog to let readers know to check out you great comment on verifying emails – thank you!
The nice part is, if you have NO clue how Email (or PCs) work, this is a great way of checking out strange Emails. If you DO know a little, you can find the address and report it – the BBB or FBI for domestic sites, probably the FBI for foreign sites. (I think they have a site on their web page that tells you how to report these things.) Not only can you avoid being a victim, but you can also make sure others don’t get in trouble, as well.