WARNING paypal identity theft email.

I checked my email today and lo somone sent me a message saying:


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Unauthorized access to your PayPal account!

We recently noticed more attempts to log in to your PayPal account from a foreign IP address.

If you accessed your account while traveling, the unusual log in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if you are the rightfull holder of the account, please visit Paypal as soon as possible to verify your identity:

Click here to verify your account

http: //dsl-209-205-181-225.i-55.com:82/index.php?cmd=p/auc/new_buyer_intro-outside
Link disabled for safety - Empath

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise but to temporaly suspend your account.

We ask that you allow at least 72 hours for the case to be investigated and we strongly recommend to verify your account in that time.

Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team

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The real email looked exactly like it would had it come from Paypal customer service but the graphics dont transfer to this text box. If you click on the link they provide they ask you to log into your paypal account which YOU MUST NOT DO! If you enter your paypal login info they can steal ALL the money in your bank account. I entered a fake username and pass just to see what would happen and it led to a screen where they asked for my debit card # and pin #. I reported them to paypal and i hope this guy gets caught. I know this scam must trick a lot of people.

It's amazing what some people will do over the internet that they don't have the guts to do in person.
These are the kind of fools that wouldn't even make good subprime used car sales people.
....Not! :nana:

I receive emails like this fairly regularly.

When I hover the mouse cursor over the furnished link and then look at the bottom edge of my browser, it does NOT display "https://"; instead, it displays "http://" followed by a URL that is *NOT* a Paypal URL.

that e-mail is definitely a hoax. note the address it sends you to in the link. the first time i received this message some months back, i thought someone was wrong with my account. but i noticed the bogus/strange link address, so logged in normally to paypal and saw that nothing was wrong.

my advice if you get one of these "warnings" and are really concerned is to go to www.paypal.com manually (by typing in the correct address, or through your normal way) and not through that link, to check your account(s).

The nasty one, of late, is one advising you that your password change has been successful. It then gives you a link to click if you think there has been an error.

the funny thing is sometimes I get these at e-mail accounts not associated with PayPal (or my bank, or from banks I don't have accounts with, etc.)

I just started my Paypal acc. back up again yesterday because of all the deals that I am missing out on this board..

Boy, this thread was a really confidence booster!

Thanks for the heads up.I used to get ebay ones like that all of the time. What was so bad about the, is if you cliked the link, the site that it takes you to looks exactly like an official ebay site. There was also one that looked just like the signup list for the no call list. The people that do this are vultures. I feel bad for all of the people that fall for these and get overloaded with spam, and/or get their identities stolen.:thumbsdow

Schuey, you'll be alright as long as you don't click the links in any email. If there's a question, go directly to https://www.paypal.com , and see for yourself if there is a problem.

The ones I've been getting lately from "paypal" (*not*) are the ones saying I made a payment to so and so for $890.00, and if I did not authorize the purchase to follow all of the nasty links and give my life to them. My dad gets these too, but he doesn't have a paypal account and has never bought anything from ebay.

Thanks, Empath! Yeah, if I do happen to receive any email that looks too fishy, I'll just it delete it on the spot. If it does turn out to be real, they can just send me another one..

A lot of the time I forward these types of letters to [email protected], or [email protected]. They usually send a reply saying that it was a fraudulent letter.

Scammers do this with both PayPal and E-Bay. Both PayPal and E-Bay recommend that you forward a copy of the offending email to:

[email protected] or

[email protected] as appropriate.

Really, the only proper punishment for thieves is a "neck tie party"

All real Ebay and Paypal emails will contain your real first name and last name.

Never follow a link from an email to sensitive sites like paypal or ebay.

If you have a need to check out link. Paste link in a new browser window or go-to link from a known bookmark.