Attention PayPal Users - Fake email notification!
Since there are Small Business customers and Partners who use PayPal, I thought this is an important issue that many people need to be aware of in order to protect your online and financial information. There is an email floating around (and no, this is not the first time) that looks like this:
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Subject: Account compromised: temporaly suspend (Ridiculously enough, they even misspelled temporarily)
Unauthorized access to your PayPal account!
We recently noticed more attempts to log in to your PayPal account from a foreign IP address.
If you accessed your account while traveling, the unusual log in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if you are the rightfull holder of the account, please visit Paypal as soon as possible to verify your identity:
Click here to verify your account (Not hyperlinked in this Blog post)
You can also verify your account by logging into your PayPal account at https://www.paypal.com/us/. (Not hyperlinked in this Blog post)
If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise but to temporaly suspend your account.
We ask that you allow at least 72 hours for the case to be investigated and we strongly recommend to verify your account in that time.
Thank you for using PayPal!
PayPal Email ID PP315
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Do NOT click ANY of the links in the email above if you receive it or any email like it! Although they URLs listed above look like PayPal addresses, if you hover over the links, you will notice that they are NOT linked to PayPal! Instead, they are linked elsewhere where someone will more than likely attempt to steal your PayPal information in order to illegally access your account. As a general rule of thumb, if you see a link in an email that you want to follow, open a browser window and type that URL into the address bar yourself (or copy and paste it) so that you know exactly where you are going instead of clicking a link and hoping it takes you where it says.
Be sure to let anyone you know that uses PayPal to watch out for these blatant attempts to access your information and please protect yourself from attempts like this. Similar emails to this circulate regarding eBay accounts as well. Remember that you can always go to https://www.paypal.com and log in there directly to verify if you have any problems with your account. You should never have to click a link in an email. Microsoft has several resources available for you to view online to help protect yourself against these types of attempts at: https://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/email/default.mspx
This is also important in regards to Microsoft security bulletins. When Microsoft sends out notifications and security updates, we do NOT send attachments in email. Do NOT open any attachments. You can always go to: https://www.microsoft.com/security to see the latest news or be sure to use Microsoft Update to keep your PC up to date with the latest information: https://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxpsp2/Default.mspx
Thank you and have a wonderful day,
Eric Ligman
Microsoft US Senior Manager
Small Business Community Engagement
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights