How Scammers Target Your PayPal Account & How To Never Fall For It

It is very obvious that Paypal is one of the most important accounts you can use online.The reason being that it is the platform with which you can make online payments and other transactions.This is why it is one of the most targeted account by scammers and trust me you don't want to play with your money.



One of the most important thing to do with your Paypal account is to have a strong password.But sometimes having a strong password doesn't stop a scammer from having access to your account, and this happens in a woy that sounds crazy - you voluntarily giving out your account information to scammers.

Fake PayPal Emails

Fake Paypal Emails are one of the most common tools that scammers use to access your Paypal account information.The surprising thing is that this Emails look original and again the scammers introduce more ideas everyday.Fake Paypal Emails can claim any of the following:

• Your account has been limited due to an unauthorized transaction.
• You’re entitled to a refund.
• You’ve received a payment.
• You’ve sent a payment.
• You need to verify your account.
• You need to provide information that will help protect you.
• You need to confirm your email address.
• You need to update your account information.     

The above are few and the most common means with which scammers use to trick you into submitting your Paypal account information to them.And don't get me wrong the scammers have new ideas everyday.

What the Fake Email does is to persuade you into doing any of the following:

• Persuade you to enter your login information on a fake website.
• Persuade you to call a fake customer support number and provide your login information.
• Trick you into opening an attachment which will install malware on your computer.

So we know these emails are common and persuading, and we know they’re pretty dangerous, so how can you still protect yourself?

Recognizing Fake Emails

1. Look at the sender’s address.

When you get an email from PayPal, always check the “From” field to see who sent it. Many times, you’ll find ridiculous yet confusing things like service@paypall.com, service@paypal.net, etc. Sometimes it will even be “service@paypal.com”, but looking carefully will reveal this is just the name of the sender, and the address is quite different.
In some cases, though, the Paypal scammers are very smart, and the email does seem to come from the right email address for all intents and purposes. But don’t worry, you still have ways to find them out.
2. Look at the email’s greeting.

An original Paypal Email will use your full name in addressing you in the greeting part of the message.If you see something like “Dear PayPal Member”, “Dear PayPal Customer”, “Dear Customer”, “Hello”, “Dear member”, or anything to that effect, ignore it. This is a very good way to recognize fake Emails.
Does the greeting say “Hello <your full name>”?Proceed to checking the next points for sending the Email
3. Are there attachments?
If the Email ask you to click on any " enclosed attachments" then you can feel free to ignore the Email.
Paypal will not ask you to check any attachment, if Paypal wants you to see anything then they will ask you to log in to your account to see the information.
4. Are there links? Check them.

If you look at the genuine Emails sent from Paypal i.e notifications about transfers, received payments and so on it does not contain link.But in case you see any Email from Paypal asking you to do any activity then you have to verify the link by clicking on it to check where it leads to.  All genuine links will leads to https://www.paypal.com/***. If you see anything else, including the correct address in a non-secure website (http:// instead of https://), don’t click it, and ignore the email. Most scam emails will include links to fake websites, as this is a great way to steal your login information.
You can also examine the link’s text. Does it say something like “Click here to activate your account”? Or “Confirm my account”? These are most probably fake. But don’t ever rely on text alone, always check where a link leads to in order to make sure.
5. Does the email ask for personal information?
Does the email ask for any personal information such as credit or debit card numbers, bank account details, driver’s license number, email addresses, or passwords? Please don't hesitate to ignore. PayPal will never ask for any personal details in an email.
6. Grammar and spelling

If you see any Email that is sent to you with bad grammer then that is a very good way to know that the Email is a fake one.This is because Paypal doesn't make any mistake with the Emails that they send. Another telltale sign is the use of punctuation marks. “Attention!”, “Your PayPal Account has been limited!”, “Thank you for using your bank account!” “Cancel transaction!”, are all signs of a spoof email.

I Found A Fake Email, What Do I Do?

As I’ve said over and over again throughout this post, the best thing to do with these fake emails is ignore and delete them. If you want to help others avoid similar emails, you can forward the email as is to spoof@paypal.com, and then promptly delete it. This will inform PayPal of the scam.

Fake PayPal Websites

Fake PayPal websites are an extension of fake emails, and are usually linked to within these emails. A fake PayPal website can look identical to the real PayPal, but when you try to log in, it will simply steal your username and password. Even if you’ve gone ahead and clicked a link in an email, not all is lost. Unless the website you’ve reached contains malicious scripts, you can still escape the scam.
Even if the website looks exactly like PayPal, stop for a minute and look at the address bar. Do you see this?

There are three things you need to look for:

• Are you actually on a www.paypal.com website?
• If the address is actually www.paypal.com, is it also https?
• Do you see the lock symbol (doesn’t appear in IE)?

If all three (or first two, if you’re using IE) are present, you should be safe. However, always be sure to check these on the page you’re actually logging into. Some very sophisticated scams have been known to appear on a genuine PayPal server, and then lead you to another page where you’re asked to log in – this one a fake. So even if everything seems in order, make sure to double check before actually entering your login information.
Note: the green verification bar might not appear when you try making payments to third-party websites through PayPal. This does not  mean they’re fake. However, you should definitely look for it on any link you follow from a PayPal email.

Conclusion

Avoiding PayPal scams is not hard. To start with, many of these scam emails are already filtered to your spam folder. If for some reason one escapes through, following the tips lined out in this post should keep you safe from any tricks and phishing scams.
Have you encountered a sophisticated scam email from PayPal? Have you ever been tricked by one? Share your stories!