Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Is this Pay Pal phishing or not?


Be safe!



I received an email this morning. The headline was
"Update your credit card information with PayPal"

I know enough to understand that Pay Pal never asks for your personal information in an email.

But the catch is that this email (shown below) does not ask for my info. It tells me to log into my Pay Pal account and change the credit card information. So, I wonder. Could this be a real request?

The problem is that there is no way to tell if the two links provided lead to the Pay Pal website. So, I opened a new browser tab for Pay Pal. I went to the credit card section. Surprise! The credit card did need updating. Hmmm.....

So, probably this is a real email from Pay Pal, or not? Hard to say. I am going to send an email to Pay Pal and ask.

I think it's good to know this stuff. What about you? Please comment.

Here is the email I received...

Hello greg cryns,

Your credit card ending in 4321 will expire soon. To avoid any disruption to your PayPal service,
please update your credit card expiration date by following these steps:

Log in to your PayPal account.
Go to the Profile subtab and click Credit Cards in the Financial Information column.
Choose the credit card that needs updating and click Edit.
Enter the updated card information.
Or simply get the PayPal Plus Credit Card. You could be approved almost instantly, and there’s no annual fee. Apply today (link).


Thanks,

PayPal

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response.

For assistance, log in (link) to your PayPal account and click the Help link in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

To receive email notifications in plain text instead of HTML, update your preferences.

PayPal Email ID PP031


Greg Cryns

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2 comments:

  1. It's hard to make out the real emails from the fake ones anymore. I think the real ones do much the same as PayPal did here, which is, to send you to the original site and log in, versus ask you to take any action via the email. Tricky business keeping one's finances safe online these days!

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  2. Hey Jessica!

    Nice to see you here. Love your comment. It is TRICKY to figure things out in these fast moving days.

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