Paypal scam?

[BouncingSoul]

About once every 6 weeks I get an email from Paypal, or someone pretending to be paypal. It informs me I need to restore my access. Unlike obvious scam emails, this one has no graphics, just plain text and no links to a reset page. It even says to be perfectly secure to open a new browser window and type the paypal URL in manually. I forwarded the message to the paypal fraud department and was told that it was indeed a fraudulent message. However if I go to paypal and try to log in, the paypal homepage tells me that my account has been disabled and I need to input my full account number to restore access. Needless to say I don't do it but I can't get into my account and I can't get anyone at paypal to address my questions. This happens on all systems I try to login with (home, work, laptop, school) so I don't think its some very very slick spyware duping me into visiting a spoofed page. So has this happened to anyone else? Should I actually give them my information?

 

[Dark Atheist]

contact them by phone - paypal have always said they will never ask for personal details via email

 

[tdinc]

carpo is on point. Any legit business will never ask for personal info through an email, period. If in doubt always call and first. This is simple practice everyone should know by now. 🙂

 

[BouncingSoul]

Wow navigating the paypal phone system is enough to drive someone crazy. I got everything taken care of. It seems the paypal customer service department doesn't know what the paypal fraud department is doing and vice versa. The customer service dept told me the email was fake but my account was locked out, the fraud dept told me it was real and that I needed to follow the instructions in the email to restore access. Crazy, but the important thing is that its working.

 

[kcnychief]

Glad to hear it is sorted 🙂

I agree that calling is always the best bet, and have had no problems in the past using their phone system (I call rather often for various reasons). Also, wrt spam and finding out what it is, I find that hovering your mouse over a URL in an e-mail will reveal the true link and safe you having to even visit the fake site 🙂

 

[Steevo]

I like to use the fake e-mails and tyupe in lots of false informations. It give me and them something to do. the you can alwys typein things like heywouldjablowme@yourhouse.cum and a password like yourea****head


Fun. See?

 

[Steevo]

Just make sure that your browser isn't setup to auto log in before clicking the link.

 

[AllWeatherGal]

Wow navigating the paypal phone system is enough to drive someone crazy. I got everything taken care of.

Kudos to you. I spent 20 minutes on hold this morning and then gave up. I could have driven to the office faster 🙁

I tried to buy something from drugstore.com with their "pay by paypal" link. It came back is "problem with paypal, you need to give us your credit card" (which is of course what I was trying to avoid) ... and then I call drugstore.com and the gal tells me that paypal doesn't tell them what's wrong and when I look at my paypal account, I just see "pending" ... and

I wish people / businesses that used paypal would make the integration CLEAN, darnit.

/rantover

 

[kcnychief]

Kudos to you. I spent 20 minutes on hold this morning and then gave up. I could have driven to the office faster 🙁

I tried to buy something from drugstore.com with their "pay by paypal" link. It came back is "problem with paypal, you need to give us your credit card" (which is of course what I was trying to avoid) ... and then I call drugstore.com and the gal tells me that paypal doesn't tell them what's wrong and when I look at my paypal account, I just see "pending" ... and

I wish people / businesses that used paypal would make the integration CLEAN, darnit.

/rantover

You should probably check into those virtual credit cards that paypal uses, generates a new card number for each transaction.