Scammers are targeting PayPal customers with the email message below, which claims the recipients' PayPal account has been limited, is a phishing scam. The fake email message is an attempt to steal PayPal users' account names and passwords. It was designed to trick the recipients into clicking on the link within it, which will take them to a fake or phishing PayPal website that steals personal information and account credentials.
Here is a copy of the fake or phishing PayPal email message:
PayPal
Your Account Has Been Limited
Dear Member,
We were unable to process your most recent payment. Did you recently change your bank, phone number or credit card?
To ensure that your service is not interrupted, please update your billing information today by clicking here Update, After a few clicks, just verify the information you entered is correct.
Sincerely,
PayPal Services
Clicking on any links in this email message will take you to fake PayPal website, where your user name and password will be stolen if you enter both on this fake website.
With your credentials, the scammers behind this email can hijack your PayPal account.
Other fake or phishing PayPal emails that you should look out for:
Dear Paypal Customer,
We were unable to process your most recent payment. Did you recently change your bank, phone number or credit card? To ensure that your service is not interrupted, please update your billing information today Click here. We're available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
If you have recently updated your billing information, please disregard this message as we are processing the changes you have made. Sincerely,
PayPal Member Services Team
P.S. PayPal has several pricing options to meet your needs.
Hello
security measure, we regularly screen activity in the system.
You received this message due to an issue on your account.
Due to unusual number of invalid login attempts on your account, we have reason to believe there might be security breach on your account. Your account requires extra verification process to ensure your identity under Your Account.
How to determine if an email is a PayPal scam?
PayPal does not address their users as "Dear Customer", "Dear Member", or "Dear PayPal Customer". PayPal always uses their users' first and last names in the greeting. Example: Dear John Brown. And, PayPal will never send an email with a link to enter sensitive information.
To ensure that you are on PayPal's website, your web browser address bar should look like the following:
PayPal users who were tricked into visiting the fake PayPal websites and who attempted to sign into them, are asked to change their PayPal passwords, check their accounts and report discrepancies to PayPal. PayPal users may click here for instructions to change your password.