Persistent PayPal Phishing

In early March, I received the following email allegedly from PayPal indicating that my account would be closed in August.  At first I was very concerned, but I took some time to determine whether this was a legitimate notice from PayPal. Rather than responding, I telephoned PayPal. The customer service representative was very helpful and assured me that this was a phishing attempt. They informed me that PayPal does not close accounts for lack of activity. As instructed I forwarded this email to them, and forgot about the incident.

However, just a few days ago, I received a follow-up email from the phishers. This one indicated that I closed my account and that they would like me to take a Survey indicating the reasons for my action. Once again, I checked my PayPal account and found it was still intact. It's not closed.

So, I forwarded this email to spoof@paypal.com, and received a very suspicious reply! The phishers have taken over that email address as well!  

Since PayPal is an important resource for all of us bloggers, I wanted to alert all of you to the scam that these devious thieves are employing.

If you receive any suspicious PayPal emails, ignore them. DO NOT RESPOND.  Instead log into your account, change your password, and then CALL customer service. They will tell you what to do.

So stay safe and don't be fooled!

JL...........

Initial Fake e-mail #1

Subject: XXX, your PayPal account will be closed on 08/04/2010 Date: 3/9/10 3:21:19 AM From: service@paypal.com To:"XXX  XXXXXX" PayPalHello XXX  XXXXXX, We noticed you haven't used your PayPal account in over 3 years. Inactive accounts like yours are often targeted by fraudsters, so for your protection, we'll close your account on 08/04/2010 unless you decide to start using it again within 30 days. If you have questions about our account closure policy, you can check out the User Agreementor email us at support@paypal.com Thanks, PayPal ___________________________________ Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log into 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 PP1491

Fake e-mail #2 - the Followup

Subject: PayPal - Account Closure Date: 5/3/10 3:49:08 AM From: paypal.feedback@echosurvey.com To:xxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx Dear XXX  XXXXXX, According to our records, you recently closed your PayPal account. Your business is very important to us and we would like to ask you a few questions around the main reasons why you chose to close your account. The survey should only take 2-3 minutes. http://surveys2.incontact.com/paypal/survey_paypal.taf?survey_id=649&user_id=285C0C4B-FCA9-4B45-A513-838F5082566F To respond to our survey, please click on the web address above. If that does not work, please cut and paste the entire web address into the address field of your browser. Thank you. PayPal Customer Support ** An important note from the survey vendor ** PayPal, as the party who controls the data collected in this survey, may use your responses together with existing data it has about you to ensure its products and services meet your needs. PayPal will treat data collected from you in accordance with PayPal's privacy policy. To review this privacy policy, please contact PayPal or visit PayPal's web site.

Remember: NEVER respond to or click on any of the links in suspicious emails.