Online scammers are becoming ever more creative with the way they gather information and hijack accounts. The scam artists know that in order to rip people off, they need to be convincing. And that’s exactly what we have here. Today I would like to show you two email scams that look as though they have been sent from PayPal. These phishing scams have been sent out to thousands of people and look extremely convincing. The “PayPal Payment Email Scam” And “PayPal Security Scam” are designed to take both your money and your personal details.
In this article we’ll take a look at a couple of examples of these scams. You’ll learn what to do if you receive one of these emails and how to tell if it’s genuine or fake.
If you find this article helpful please support us by sharing this page on social media and leaving a comment in the section at the bottom of this post.
The PayPal Payment Email Scam
The PayPal Payment email scam is designed in quite a cleaver way. Unlike many scams that try to get you to click on a link, this scam tries to panic you into clicking. The scammers send out an email that looks similar to the examples below. There are many versions of the PayPal Payment Email scam, but they all look quite similar. As you will notice, the email looks pretty convincing and quite authentic.
The email will state that you have sent a payment via PayPal, but of course this is not the case. This email is not sent from PayPal at all. The email is sent directly from scam artists who aim to take your money and personal information. The idea here is to make you click on a link that states that you can cancel the payment. Take a look…
This is the link that the scammers are tying to get you to click. Many people fall for this scam as it looks genuine and they panic thinking that their account has been hacked. Clicking on the cancel payment link will take you to a log-in page that looks just like the real PayPal website. However, this link will take you directly to a fake PayPal website that is designed to gather your log-in details and personal info.
If you hover your mouse over the link in these emails you can see where it links to. Anything other than the official PayPal site should be avoided. In the example below you can see that this scam directs a website called Easterncompany(.com). This is quite clearly a phishing website.
Another Example Of The PayPal Payment Email Scam
Here is another example of the same scam. You can see that this example looks quite different to the last, but takes the same approach to getting you to click on the “login” link.
And this is where we would be directed to if we were to click on the link. Again, quite obviously not an official PayPal website.
The PayPal Security Email Scam
The PayPal Security email scam works in the same way as the previous example. The goal here is to simply get you to click on the link again. The security scam takes a slightly different approach and tells you that your account has been limited or compromised in some way.
And here is another example of the security scam. Here we can see that the scammers are trying to get the receiver of this email to verify personal information. The links within these emails take you to a log-in page as described earlier.
The PayPal Email Scams Keep On Coming!
It’s important to remember that the people behind these scams are trying to think up new ways of scamming people all the time. In our last example you can see that this email looks very simple and very convincing. This scam works in exactly the same way as the other two but simply states that you can view your online statement by clicking the link.
How To Spot A Fake PayPal Login Page?
If you were to click on a link from any of the scams that we have talked about you will be directed to a fake PayPal login page. This page is designed to capture your PayPal login details before directing you to the next part of the scam. Notice in this example how we were directed to “QayPal”. You should always check the URL of the page that you are logging into, especially when following a link from within an email.
And here is an example of the page that you are directed to after logging into the fake PayPal website. As you can see, this page is designed to capture a lot of your person information, including credit card details.
Stay Safe And Avoid PayPal Email Scams
As you can see from the images above, these PayPal scams can be quite convincing. Always check where a link is going to take you before you click on it. If you click on the link accidentally, you should always check the URL of the page that you are sent to. If the URL doesn’t look like an official PayPal website, then chances are it isn’t!
These scams are designed to gather as much information as possible. By entering your details into one of these pages you are giving access not only to your PayPal account, but to your bank and credit card accounts too. Information gathered on these pages can be used for identity theft as well as being sold on to other criminals.
Always approach any emails from PayPal with extreme care. If you have any doubt about an email that you receive, you should log into the official PayPal website and contact their online support team.
In phishing pretending to be a reputable organization asking you to do a certain security procedure; this procedure involves changing your password or revealing your bank credentials. so avoid if they ask so if required you may call on the official phone number.
Quite right! Thanks for your input.