Possible Phishing Scam from PayPal Look-Alike

[SacramentoMike]

I guess the title says it all. I got a very real-looking email from--maybe--PayPal this morning, referring to "possible un-authorized recent activity" on my account. Warned me that I wouldn't be able to use the account at all until it was resolved. It's just the old phishing story, but it looked real enough that I did some research by googling "PayPal scams" and also going direct to PayPal. Bottom line, I forwarded the suspicious email to "spoof(at)paypal.com" and then deleted it. Didn't click on any links in the message, for sure. It asked for a lot of info on me, including SSN, etc.

I don't think many here would fall for a try like this one, but thought it was worth a heads-up.

 

[Pterodactyl]

Good rule is to never enter a password protected site by using a link provided in an email. Use your bookmarks.

 

[FTL900]

With the recent Experian hack, hopefully the phishing attempts will fall off. I mean, they already have all of our info now, right?

 

[Knifemaker]

Got one from a fake Yahoo Mail last month. I don't trust any site that emails me.

 

[Fred W]

The Paypal phish is not all that unusual. I've seen a couple of them over the years. They are usually pretty easy to spot since most of these scammers are not native English language speakers, but any time I am prompted to log in to any account from an unsolicited email I am always suspect.

Usually all you have to do is to hover your cursor over the link to see that it doesn't go to where it should, but with mobile touch devices (and Windoze10?) that may not be so easy or obvious. I still use a computer, with a mouse, running a robust version of Windoze7 Pro, most of the time. Hackers are not tailoring their current schemes to curmudgeons like me.