Sigh… no harm is done!

Just a couple of hours ago, while checking my mailbox, I found a message from Paypal telling me they had limited my account. My heart skipped a beat; I had seen it happen to others, PayPal suspending their account for no obvious reason…

Once the first shock was gone, I could think clear again, and told myself it could be just a spoof email… I remembered (vaguely) that official Paypal messages always address customers with their full name, never with ‘Dear customer’ or ‘Dear Member’ (Or was it just the other way around?)

So, I headed over to the PayPal site to see what I could find about the topic.
There I found ‘ PayPal’s 10 ways to recognize fake (spoof) emails’

In short, these are the most important tips:

1. PayPal uses your first and last name in every email. Be suspisious when you see things like ‘Dear Customer’. (See, I was right)
2. Always check where a link is going before you click it. Move your mouse over it and look at the URL in your browser or email status bar. Links to theofficial PayPal site always start with https://www.paypal.com/
3. PayPal never asks for personal information in an email.
4. Only enter your PayPal password on PayPal pages.
5. PayPal never uses popup boxes in emails, nor add attachments to it.

You can read the entire list by going to PayPal’s Security Center.

Since the email I received started with ‘Dear Customer’, I felt a little more secure, but to be sure I forwarded it to PayPal’s spoof address. Just now I received a reply, telling me the email was fake indeed.

I must say, it looked really ‘real’, unlike most fake PayPal messages I’ve received in the past.

I’m happy that it turned out to be fake, but it makes a person think, you know. only this week I received a message from a customer pointing me towards the fact that - although I’m distributing the ‘Seller Beware‘ report (this is a free report on how to protect yourself against having your account limited or closed) - I was ignoring some of the tips that are in this report. In other words, I was doing things that could make the PayPal people really unhappy.

So I read through the report again, and made the changes necessary to be on the safe side. … If there is any….

All this just to say, that some actions can have disastrous results if you don’t think them through. And although it’s easy & tempting, it’s wrong to think some things will only happen to others… You’re better safe than sorry!

If you want to read the ‘Seller Beware’ report, you can get it for free here