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 part of a phishing email  presently being sent to unsuspecting people that appears to come from PayPal.  It contains a PayPal logo which I did not show in this Scam of the day.  Such logos may look legitimate, but are easy to counterfeit. The email attempts to lure you into calling a phony customer service number where you will be asked for personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft.

Here is part of the email:

“We have detected that your paypal account has been accessed fraudaulently, if you did not make this transaction, please call us our toll free number +1(888)-598-4150 to cancel and claim a refund. if this is not the case, you will be charged $787. 99 today by our banking department within 24 hours of receiving these PayPal activity.”

TIPS

Legitimate emails from a company with which you do business would include the last four digits of your account and include your name. Additionally, this email fails to capitalize PayPal in the initial sentence and misspells the word “fraudulently.”  Poor grammar and spelling errors are often a sign of a phishing email.

As with all phishing emails, two things can happen if you click on the links provided or contact the scammer by a phone number 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 call a phone number contained in the email, you will be prompted to provide credit card information or other personal information that will lead to your becoming a victim of identity theft.  If you receive an email like this and think it may possibly be legitimate, merely call the company 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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