Here is another good example of a phishing email that is presently being circulated.  Phishing emails, by which scammers and identity thieves attempt to lure you into either clicking on links contained within the email which will download malware or providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft, are nothing new.  They are a staple of identity thieves and scammers and with good reason because they work.  As always, they lure you by making it appear that there is an emergency that requires your immediate attention or else dire consequences will occur.

Copied below is a phishing email  presently being sent to unsuspecting people that appears to come from PayPal.  It contains a PayPal logo, but that is easy to counterfeit. It attempts to lure you into clicking on links to dispute charges for Norton Security products.  Interestingly, “Norton” is misspelled in the email.

Here is the email. I have removed the link where you are asked to view the invoice..  I also have removed the name of the person to whom the email was sent.

Invoice updated Billing Department updated your invoice Amount due: $399.00 USD Due on receipt View and Pay Invoice Seller note to customer Congratulations! Your subscription with Nortan Security is now auto renewed as per your selected plan. You can now continue enjoying our services smoothly. If you have not authorized this transaction or want to cancel the subscription, call us immediately -: +1 (888) 794-3532. Don’t know this seller? You can safely ignore this invoice if you’re not buying anything from this seller. PayPal won’t ask you to call or send texts to phone numbers in an invoice. We don’t ask for your credentials or auto-debit money from your account against any invoices. Contact us if you’re still not sure.

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Legitimate emails from a company with which you do business would include the last four digits of your account and include your name.  It is interesting to note that the bottom part of the phishing email was probably copied from a legitimate PayPal email because it tells the consumer that emails from PayPal will always contain the customer’s name which does not appear in this phishing email.  Apparently the scammers need to have better proof readers.As with most phishing emails, they lure you into clicking on a link by attempting to trick you into believing there is an emergency that you must deal with.

As with all phishing emails, two things can happen if you click on the links provided.  Either you will be sent to a legitimate looking, but phony webpage where you will be prompted to input personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft or, even worse, merely by clicking on the link, you will download malware such as keystroke logging malware that will steal all of your personal information from your computer and use it to make you a victim of identity theft.  If you receive an email like this and think it may possibly be legitimate, merely call your bank or other institution from which the email purports to originate at a telephone number that you know is accurate and you will be able to confirm that it is a scam. The phone number for customer service contained in the email is not a phone number used by PayPal.  The customer service number for PayPal is 888-221-1161

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