Once again, today’s “scam of the day” come right from my own email box. I have copied it below. As you can see, it looks pretty authentic except for the fact that it is addressed to “Dear valued PayPal member” rather than being directly addressed to me. The grammar and spelling are both good and as typical in such scams, it creates an emergency to which I must respond. If I believe the email and do not update my account information with them, I am told my account will be suspended. However, my advice to you when you get such an email is to not respond to it by either providing information or clicking on links within the email. This is a phishing email and if you provide the requested information, it will be used to steal your identity as well as access your PayPal account. You also may unwittingly download a keystroke logging malware program if you click on links in the email. This would result in all of the information contained in your computer including credit card numbers, bank account numbers and passwords being stolen by the identity thief.
TIPS
If you receive an email such as the one copied below, do not under any circumstances either click on any link or provide the information requested. If you have any thought that it might be legitimate, call PayPal at a telephone number that you know is legitimate or go to their website to get an address to which you can direct your inquiry about the email. Either way you will then safely learn that the email sent to you was a scam.
For me it was partiularly easy to know that the email was phony because I do not have a PayPal account.
Here is a copy of the email I received. DO NOT click on the links contained within this email.
Dear valued PayPal member, Warning ! Your PayPal Account Could Be Suspended! Identity protection matters. And PayPal works day and night to help keep your identity safe. Thats why it has come to our attention that your PayPal account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into any future problems with the online service. However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension. Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal session will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. To login to your PayPal account and update your records click on the following link:
Updating your billing information and security questions will prevent unauthorized third party access,and possibly unauthorized purchases. We thank you for your cooperation. Sincerely, Paypal
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