Is this PayPal email legit?

Rob-F

Rob-F

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I got an email, ostensibly from PayPal, saying "Confirm your identity" by clicking a button, by March 18, or my my PayPal balance will be whisked away and sequestered someplace until I do confirm my identity. I'm afraid this email might be a phishing expedition. Anybody else get something like this?
 
Rob-F said:
I got an email, ostensibly from PayPal, saying "Confirm your identity" by clicking a button, by March 18, or my my PayPal balance will be whisked away and sequestered someplace until I do confirm my identity. I'm afraid this email might be a phishing expedition. Anybody else get something like this?
Click to expand...


NEVER click on a link in one of those E-Mails. Well technically the clicking isn't so dangerous, but putting any info in the website it opens. Even if you think it's legit, just go to the website by entering the address in your browser.
In this case, that sounds like typical phishing.
 
Go into your PayPal account without clicking on the link, but I remember out of the blue having to provide some additional ID to PayPal a few years back. IIRC it coincided with the number of transactions I’d done and some laws. Something like receiving small payments to fund terrorism or something. Anyway, PayPal is really a bank, and as local laws catch up slowly you need to provide the same level of proof of ID as you do to open a bank account.
 
Is the email addressed to you by name or "Dear Cusomer/PayPal User" or somesuch? If it's not addressed by name it's 100% a scam. If it's by name I'd be quite worried since it might indicate a problem or data-breach. As per the other's advice above, NEVER click a link, always log in directly as you normally would.

PayPal mithers me to confirm my phone number (which I've done) when I log in from the Ebay pop-up and I think that's a bad thing because it leads to familiarity seeing such things, meaning you can be off-guard when a scam appears.
 
It's directed to my email account, using my email address. It's a really elaborate layout. Someone who knew what they were doing, went to a lot of trouble. But so far, no one else on RFF is saying they got this. I'll give it some time. In the meantime I will check my PayPal account.
 
The request for information showed up in my PayPal account. They want date of birth, social, and last four of social. But social security numbers are not supposed to be used for other purposes. I don't really even want to give them my DOB. How of there feel about this?
 
I got one too. I didn't click on the link, but did log into my account and looked in teh "notifications" section. You'll find the same request. What they're asking has to do with how they use your balance. Up to you if you want to agree to it or not.

Jim B.
 
Rob-F said:
It's directed to my email account, using my email address. It's a really elaborate layout. Someone who knew what they were doing, went to a lot of trouble. But so far, no one else on RFF is saying they got this. I'll give it some time. In the meantime I will check my PayPal account.
Click to expand...

It is undoubtedly a scam or phishing.

I don't know how with other email apps, but in Apple Mail I use the "Messages > Forward as attachment" command to send all such emails to Paypal Spoofs <spoof@paypal.com>, and then delete the email.

Some information from Paypal about fraud, phishing, etc:

https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/how-to-spot-fake,-spoof,-or-phishing-emails-faq2340

https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/how-do-i-report-a-fake-paypal-email-or-website-faq438

I get faked, phishing emails like this from time to time, posing as Paypal, Apple, Google, etc. Never click a button on them, always report them to whatever company was being faked, and use the safe ways to check your accounts and check for viruses and snoopers on your system.

G
 
Rob-F said:
I got an email, ostensibly from PayPal, saying "Confirm your identity" by clicking a button, by March 18, or my my PayPal balance will be whisked away and sequestered someplace until I do confirm my identity. I'm afraid this email might be a phishing expedition. Anybody else get something like this?
Click to expand...

Never, ever, ever click links within an email. To be sure, access your account by entering the full URL in your browser and go from there.

Do this every time.
 
Rob-F said:
I don't know how to check the link, but the email is from paypal@mail.paypal.com>
Click to expand...

Who the email is from is meaningless. You can set the reply address to anything you want.

The way to really check the email is to View the Raw Source of the email.

Typically you will see a more accurate sender (or at least the server where the email originally bounced from) and you can see where the link is actually going to take you. What the text says and where the link goes don't have to be the same thing.

Shawn
 
JoeLopez said:
Never, ever, ever click links within an email. To be sure, access your account by entering the full URL in your browser and go from there.

Do this every time.
Click to expand...

Yes, seconding this. Don't even click the link to see where it is going. A sophisticated system will be able to tell you clicked the link and that kind of bumps up your priority for more phishing scams. You might be a gullible one...

Shawn
 
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