# PayPal information request



## Ted Nordin (Feb 27, 2008)

I received the following e-mail form paypal?? Has anyone received one as I'm uncertain of legitimacy. E-mail to Paypal has a 24 hr turnaround and I will be off-line most of Tuesday and Wednesday. Thanks for any input

Dear valued PayPal member:



Identity protection matters. And PayPal works day and night to help keep your identity safe. That's why it has come to our attention that your PayPal account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.


However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension.


Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal session will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

To login to your PayPal account and update your records click on the following link:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run


Thank You for using PayPal!


The PayPal Team

Ted Nordin
SE Arizona (just north of the secure border)


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## armorsmith (Jun 1, 2008)

Ted, 

If they are not addressing you directly it is a scam. PERIOD! DO NOT follow the link in the email, even though it appears to be to PayPal. 

If you wish to confirm the reality, CALL PayPal from a customer service phone number you retrieve from the web site after you have logged in to your account. These are phishing emails attempting to obtain you personal data. I am totally confident your account will not be suspended. 

I have received them allegedly from Paypal, three of my banks, and my credit cards. All of them start off the same, generically 'Dear valued 'whomever' customer' or some similar generic greeting. Trust me, NO TRUSTWORTHY FINANCIAL INSTITUTION will ever contact you in this manner. 

Bob C.


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Ted

If I were you I'd just flatout delete the eMail. If you're concerned about your PayPal information then I would suggest that you open a new browser window type paypal.com in the address bar and hit the {Enter} key, then login to your account and take things from there.


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Ted,

I have used PayPal for many years and have not had any problem with them. I HAVE received spammer e-mails from folks making you THINK it is from PayPal. These are the people you have to be careful of. I received an e-mail from the legitimate PayPal about a month or so ago, about updating my credit card info. I knew that my old card was about to expire that I used for my PayPal account. BTW, that card is used solely for my hobby buying and nothing else. I have a cap on the card just to keep any losses very low, if there ever was a problem. NEVER has been.

Your e-mail looks exactly like the one I received to update my account. You have your password to check the status of your account, so I wouldn't be too concerned.


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## jmill24 (Jan 11, 2008)

Got same notice today, it is the second I have gotten in the past year. I just delete them.


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

I copy the headers into the email and send them to [email protected]. They usually get the site shut down and the email address deleted pretty quickly. Don't click on a link, because that will just verify your email address for more spammers to sue and log you IP for them. 

Or use spamcop.com. I do it all the time. 

Robert


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

I used PayPal for over 10 years, and they have never asked me to update my information. 

It's too bad we can't return these scam emails with a dagger to the senders heart. 

Delete Delete Delete 

Randy


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

What I find interesting is that almost immediately I have had a Pay Pal transaction go through I get that same spam E mail. How do the spammers know that? 
It appears to come from France as it ends in .fr 
Just delete it.


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

Forward it to [email protected] They will take care if it.....I have gotten dozed of those a year for over about 8 eyars. I have never answered one NEVER. I have NEVER had any trouble with Pay Pal.


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## Ted Nordin (Feb 27, 2008)

Thanks all. I deleted the first one last week and this one just went away also.

Ted


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## Nicholas Savatgy (Dec 17, 2008)

Send it to Spam............


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

The e-mail I received to update my credit included my first and last name and the last four digits of the card that I use with PayPal. If you have never used a card with PayPal, then it is definately a "phishing" e-mail. All of the scam e-mails ask you to click on a site that the SPAMMER puts in the body of the e-mail. Whenever i can a legit e-mail from PayPal, they ask me to LOG ON to PayPal through a "bookmark" that I have for the legit webpage. You have to be proactive and cover your butt and not just indiscriminately click a website the e-mail provides you. It's been that way for years. Yes, I get the bogus e-mails and yes I ship them right off to [email protected] You have to be careful with EVERY e-mail you get-NOT just PayPal.


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Ted Nordin on 07 Feb 2011 07:45 PM 
Thanks all. I deleted the first one last week and this one just went away also.

Ted
That's the best thing to do, Ted. However, there is another thing that you can do.... 

Forward all those emails to [email protected], then delete them. Pay Pal may do some investigation work to try to find the scammers. 

Forwarding similar ebay messages to [email protected] starts the same process.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

When I first started to use paypal, I got several e-mails over the next few months that warned me to never click on a link in an e-mail from Paypal... the really funny thing was that at the bottom of the e-mail were a link to read their Privacy Policy, a link to access a Help function, and a link to remove my name from their mailing list, etc.


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## Madstang (Jan 4, 2008)

Never open ANY e-mail you do not know who sent it...delete it right away! That is how you let a virus into yor computer!

If you have a question about ANY e-mail you get CALL the company but delete it. make sure your "preview" view is on so you can preview it before oppening it.

Bottom line if there is ANY suspision...DELETE!!!!! Then permently delete it!

Bubba


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

On most browsers, if you mouse over the link, the real address will appear in the bottom of the browser window. Almost invariably, this address is not www.(place it's supposed to be).com, but some closely related variation ending with a .ru or .something-other-than-dotcom at the end of the address. If you do go to the site, mouse over the links on the site, and equally invariably, none of them will take you where they're supposed to go, if they're even at all different from the page you're on. (Not that I'm recommending going to the sites, but in a newsroom, we're always looking for good consumer-awareness stories, so we tend to follow links on scams like this to see where they lead.) 

I get those delightful messages from banks and other companies with which I don't even do business, so there's red flag #1. 

Related to that, though, I was cruising the other day, went to a web site then promptly got hijacked to a site that looked all the world like a Norton security warning. A window popped up saying it had scanned my drives and detected a virus, etc., and so forth, and I needed to "run this program" to eliminate them. I've gotten similar messages from time to time when our firewall finds something not quite right, so the fact that this came up didn't register as unusual in its own right. They almost got me... the only thing that really flagged my attention was that their pop-up windows were in the "traditional" Windows XP blue colors, and I had customized my colors so my windows aren't blue. 

Later, 

K


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## afinegan (Jan 2, 2008)

Don't ever click a link (even if it looks legit) and login with your account info, if your truly concerned, type http://www.paypal.com directly in the web browser, then you know its the right web addresss.


I can show you what they can do, if you use an @ sign it kills what was before:

pa[email protected]www.google.com

Cut and paste it in, mylargescale is ruining my html code again....
The above link brings you to google, HOW is this possible-> its because of that @ sign,, just be careful folks! (Im a CCNA and work at an isp and know alot about routing and how the internet works)

Andrew


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## blueregal (Jan 3, 2008)

Preypal will never ask you for any private or personal information. J.J. eventually you will have a problem, its inevitable! Also Ebay will also not ask you for any personal or private information. If you get an email from Ebay all you have to do to check its legitimacy is to go to your ebay summary, and there will be the same message in there in your mail there!! Regal


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## jgallaway81 (Jan 5, 2009)

@import url(http://www.mylargescale.com/Provide...ad.ashx?type=style&file=SyntaxHighlighter.css);@import url(/providers/htmleditorproviders/cehtmleditorprovider/dnngeneral.css); Internet Safety Rules: 

1) As Kevin suggests, change your windows color scheme so that a window with "default windows blue" will show as a fake. 

2) NEVER respond to an email that asks you to click a link. ALWAYS manually type the address into the address bar. This will ensure ANY spoofing in the link code will be avoided completely. 

3) DISABLE your preview pane. Ironically, this alone is enough to malicious code into your system. The preview pane still opens the email and processes the email. This is especially critically true in stand-alone email clients like MS Outlook & Outlook Express. Less critical, but still dangerous in webmail clients like GMail. 

4) DISABLE auto-image loading. Two reasons: a) malformed image hotlinks can exploit code bugs in the software and allow unauthorized access to your system. b) images are almost always linked from the email to a server. When your email calls the server for the image, you have confirmed that there is an email box with a person attached. Bingo, your email just got flagged as a real-live box. 

5) ALWAYS ensure your software is up to date. By this I mean make certain you have the latest security patches for ALL software from microsoft.... windows has holes, IE has holes, even Office has holes that can allow malware to run unauthorized code in your system. As long as you update as fast as possible, you leave your system vulnerable for as little time as possible. Even when patched, its still swiss cheese to an intent hacker. 

6) ALWAYS run Antivirus, Anti-Malware and a firewall. AND ALWAYS make certain the definition files, code engine and patches are up to date. 

7) When setting up your wireless network, two things: 1)change the SSID... SSID "linksys" has been flagged as the nation's new free wireless ISP  2)ENABLE WIRLESS SECURITY ON YOUR NETWORK WAP is useless. It can be cracked in a matter of a couple minutes. WEP is better, WEP-2 is better still. And use the largest passphrase you can! The more letters, the longer it will take cracking software to "puzzle-piece" it together. Good-security is the first sign to a hacker that there are easier targets elsewhere. Finally, consider making your network NOT broadcast your SSID. Its not much, but if you don't broadcast the name, the casual hacker is less likely to bother with you. 

8) IF you truely want to do what you can to protect your system, consider dancing the "Security Tango". securitytango.com is a FREE website developed by the three guys who run SoundBytes.org which a FREE user group that offers computer assistance via their radio show from the Rochester, NY area. they broadcast on Jazz 90.1 FM, and stream live from the 90.1 website. Having been on the air for 20+ years, and having over 100 years combined experience, they truly are an asset to the casual computer user. Nick, Steve & Dave provide the show for free. Their website even has a complete archive of their show since 2000. I benefit from this shameless plug only in that I hope to generate a bigger listening base for the guys, thereby further justifying their work. The show is free, the Security Tango, which recently was broken into versions for all three OS's, includes the Windows Waltz, Linuz Lambada & the Mac-arena...oh, and I see its even more recently been expanded to include the Android Allemande, is also free. 

If interested, jump over to the http://www.soundbytes.org website and check out their FREE podcast archive. Can't do anything but waste two hours of your ipod space for a few days?


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## Allan W. Miller (Jan 2, 2008)

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER respond to such an e-mail, no matter who it supposedly comes from and no matter how "legitimate" it appears to be! I get those things from banks and all sorts of other places all the time--some of which actually use proper spelling, grammar, and graphics. I NEVER respond to any of them and never will. The solution is as close as the "delete" button.


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