# Stupid Paypal Trick



## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

I got two emails in the last week, both purporting to come from Paypal.

"Peter Thornton, important update to PayPal communications - your action required"[/b]

"Your accont Paypal has been limited !" [/b]

I didn't hesitate - I just forwarded them to [email protected] as I usually do.

I was astounded to receive an email, subject "Suspicious Email (KMM25518450V37664L0KM) pk1" that said 
" Dear Peter T,

Thank you for bringing this email to our attention. We can confirm that 
PayPal sent this email. We apologize for any confusion this may have 
caused. 
. . ".

I nearly sent that to the spoof email as well. It turned out Paypal wants everyone to agree to their Electronic Communication policy! So they send an email that looks like a spoof!!

How many of you assumed it was a phish/spoof besides me?


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I ignored it also.... 

They make a point of telling you that they DON'T send stuff by email... 

Jeeze 

Greg


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## flats (Jun 30, 2008)

I would have taken it as phish or spoof myself for that is how they 
usually address it to get your attention. 

Ken owner of K&K the road to nowhere


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Yes sir;

I received the same two eMails, but I simply deleted them. I find PayPal's reply to you regarding their shift to electronic communication amusing, because for normal reasons I had sometime back directly accessed PayPal and performed regular maintenance and review, a part of which was the acceptance of the agreement to the electronic communications. So now the question becomes just how good is PayPal's record keeping, since I've already agreed to the agreement and yet they send me the eMail, makes one wonder.


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## Del Tapparo (Jan 4, 2008)

Well, I trashed those e-mails and my account was certainly never "limited". I don't remember agreeing to anything new in my account. Maybe I did.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Every time I logged into PayPal for a the last 3 or 4 months, instead of going to my account, I would get a page telling me I would need to agree to a new policy or my account could be locked, limited or frozen in the future until I did agree. It said I would need to agree by January 1st of 2012. I was always too busy with the need to use PayPal at that moment to fiddle with the stuff, so I would click on a button labeled "Remind me later" and proceed to what I wanted to do. I got a couple of e-mails from PayPal telling me the same thing.

I ignored it all until a couple of weeks ago when I deliberately logged into my PayPal account and instead of clicking "Remind me later", I clicked the "Read the Agreement" link and read the change...

WAY TOO MUCH bibble-babble in it, but basically it says you agree to read electronic messages they will be sending in the future instead of demanding paper notices of changes in policy and you agree to let them send you account activity statements via e-mail. I never knew I could demand a paper copy of their policies and I have always received notifications of changes in policy via e-mail. I agreed to the change and have since received one statement of account activity (all one "Send Money" transaction) and I like the statement as it may alert me to activity that I didn't do... Kind of like a bank checking account monthly statement.

I can't guarantee that this is all that the change is about, but it is what "I", personally, understood I was agreeing to. They may or may not have slipped in all sorts of other things, but I didn't see anything wrong or dastardly in the verbose verbage. Besides, if I want to use their services then I have to agree with their terms and if they want me and everybody else to continue using their service then they cannot get too heavy handed in their policies.


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Must be a US only thing. 
I haven't received an email yet, but as Greg stated 

"They make a point of telling you that they DON'T send stuff by email..." 

So I would have normally trashed the emails as well or if I had some time and felt benevolent sent the email to paypal phishing. 

Knut


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Just read it, failry standard terms, but yes, PayPal is saying "we will e-mail you" when they always said they would not in the past. You can opt out, but your account can be limited or terminated. 

Strange...


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## armorsmith (Jun 1, 2008)

Pete, 

I did the same as you and got the same as you. 

Bob C.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

They may or may not have slipped in all sorts of other things, but I didn't see anything wrong or dastardly in the verbose verbage. Besides, if I want to use their services then I have to agree with their terms and if they want me and everybody else to continue using their service then they cannot get too heavy handed in their policies. 
_The idea of "agree with our policy or you can't use our service" is legally insane. Same with the software license agreement. Everytime Adobe updates my Reader, or Sun updates Java I get another stupid 'click to agree+continue' window. 
One of these days someone will take Oracle or Microsoft to court with a class action for imposing unenforceable terms on unsuspecting consumers._ 

But I digress... I logged in to Paypal the proper way, by typing it into my browser window, clicked on the 'accept' button for this email thingie, and then went to my Profile to make sure I wasn't supposed to be getting ANY emails. The only checks were the buy/sell info emails, so I hit the SAVE button -- and it refused to allow me to save my preferences!


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## jebouck (Jan 2, 2008)

It is a spoof! I got the same e-mail and I don't or never had a PayPal account!


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## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

I don't know about it being a spoof or not but I _did_ receive that email and I _did_ delete it and I _did_ go to the Paypal website and log into my account and I _did _check to see if I needed to "agree" to anything. I did not.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By jebouck on 20 May 2011 09:03 AM 
It is a spoof! I got the same e-mail and I don't or never had a PayPal account! 


Your comment brings two thoughts to mind.

1) I know there are legitimate e-mails from PayPal about this change in policy, so if you don't have a PayPal account, this is a warning that someone may have copied the e-mail and substituted the addresses in the links to PayPal to point at a spoof site to get people to log-in and reveal their password to the spoof site owner. NOT GOOD... A prime example of why you should never just click a link in an e-mail but open a new window/tab and type the address into the address bar or use your own "Favourites" link.

2) If you do not have a PayPal account you should IMEDIATELY contact PayPal to find out who opened an account in your name and get it closed! Someone may have stolen your identity and you will have BIG trouble in your life for a long time to come. Starting fighting it NOW or it will only get worse!


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Posted By jebouck on 20 May 2011 09:03 AM 
It is a spoof! I got the same e-mail and I don't or never had a PayPal account! 



John,

Did the email actually address you with your full first and last name?

That's supposedly how ebay tries to let you know if an email from them is legit or not.
Not much of a safe guard if you ask me - but if the email is addressed to "Dear Paypal customer" I would definitely assume it's phishing of some sort.

What surprised me is Peter's comment that paypal wrote to him that this email was legit, or...........maybe someone hacked the paypal reporting mechanism for phishing emails and the reply came from them.
Certainly not impossible.

Knut


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## Doug C (Jan 14, 2008)

I just delete them w/o reading ! If i have time I'll go their website using bookmark link chk for corp. messages. If THEY want to change their methods of contact which looks waay tooo much like phish good luck to them. There is more phish from 'paypal' than legit so they're deleted w/o reading !


imho, 

doug c


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