Internauts Warned about Scam Emails Imitating PayPal

Blog Check & Secure warned on 19th May, 2015 stating that security researchers identified many suspicious looking emails and hence Internet users are being advised to be careful about spam emails from individuals posing as online payment solution PayPal.

The phishing email asserts that PayPal is probing a payment reversal. Apparently, you have received a payment without the permission of the account holder or due to a transaction error.

You are instructed to click a link to login and access your PayPal Resolution Center in a time span of 24 hours in response to a request for information from PayPal.

However, the email has no link with PayPal. Instead, it is a phishing email designed to embezzle your financial and personal information because, clicking on the 'Resolution Center' link by you will take you to a fake website designed to imitate a genuine login page of PayPal.

Logging on to the bogus site will direct you to a form of 'Dispute Resolution' asking for your name along with other personal as well as financial details.

Clicking the 'Submit' button on the hoax form will make you receive a notification saying that the issue has been solved.

Experts, while analyzing the scam email, claim that cybercriminals collect all your information submitted by you which can then be employed to hijack your PayPal account and commit fake PayPal and credit card transactions and identity theft.

Customers of PayPal are main target for phishing scammers because PayPal does almost all of its business through email and the web. Security experts add that it is always safe to login your PayPal account by typing the web address in the address bar of your browser or through an official PayPal app.

Please remember always that companies like PayPal, banks and credit card companies will never ask you to submit such information through email.

In this specific case, the use of generic greeting like 'Dear Customer' and the use of email address instead of name of the customer is a clear signal that the email is fake because PayPal always addresses their customers by their name as the company actually knows their full names which scammers don't know.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/28/2015