PayPal Scams
When you're just about the biggest payment
processor in the world, at least as far as online payment
processing, you have to figure that people are going to try like
the devil to scam your members. Well, the PayPal scams are rampant
on the Internet. There are probably more PayPal scams than Carter
has liver pills. And the scammers are getting very good at this.
Some of these emails look darn legit and it's scary as all hell.
Well, it is the hopes of this author that after reading this
article, you will be able to recognize a PayPal scam quickly and
easily and thus not fall pray to one of them. If I've managed to
succeed in doing this, then I have done my job.
For those who don't know what PayPal is, it's a
payment processor that handles online payments for merchants and
people who deal with Ebay. It is without a doubt the most popular
payment processor on the Internet. Quite honestly, in spite of
complaints by several people that PayPal is just another corporate
giant, they really do provide a great service. I would be lost
without them. But they are not the problem. The people who run
these scams are.
The typical PayPal scam is an email that says
something like "we regret to inform you but we suspect illegal
activity with your account. Please login below and..." What they do
is give you a link to their server. This link will most likely
harvest your information that you plug into their system. Like I
said, some of these emails are so authentic looking that you are
tempted to do this. Once you do, you can kiss your PayPal account
goodbye, or at least the money that's in it.
One way to spot these scams is to look at the
link in the email itself. If you check it out closely, you will see
that it doesn't lead to PayPal's web site. It is disguised with a
PayPal sub domain but the whole link will start with something like
www.someothersite.com/paypal/someotherstuff.html.
This is an easy way to see that it's not really from PayPal even
though the email address says it is. Email addresses can be faked.
To tell where the email actually originated from, you have to check
the email headers.
Of course, if you're unsure of the email in
question, simply forward it to spoof@paypal.com. They will reply to
you and let you know if the email came from them. If it did, then
you can respond to the email and take care of the matter. In almost
all cases, the email will be a scam. PayPal will even tell you that
they will never ask for your login information in an email. So if
you get anything like that, you can pretty well believe that it's a
scam.
PayPal scams are all over in many different
forms. However, if you follow the simple tips above, you should be
able to avoid all of them without a problem. Remember, if in doubt,
just notify PayPal.
They're really pretty much on the ball.
To YOUR Success
|