PayPal users who have received email messages like the one below asking recipients to click a link to cancel an unusual payment on their accounts, are asked to delete them. This is because the email messages are phishing scams, being sent by cyber-criminals to trick PayPal users into visiting phishing websites steal PayPal usernames and passwords.
A Sample of the Phishing PayPal Email Message
From: PayPal Account <peyyyy12482106@nustay.business>
Sent: Saturday, January 6, 2018 4:21:23 PM
Subject: [Summary Report] Reminder : Unsual Payment From Santa Fe, Texas 06 January 2018, 11:25 (GMT - 7)
Thank you for purchase
You can cancel your order within 1 x 24 hours please follow the instructions in the (PDF/attachment) that we sent is thank you.
Thank's
PayPal Support
02 Jan 2018 00:11:12 GMT
Transaction ID: 7486465006
You authorised a payment of �9.99 GBP to Spotify Limited
Your funds will be transferred when the merchant processes your payment. Any money in your PayPal account at that time will be
used before any other payment source.
Thanks for using PayPal. To see the full transaction details, log in to your PayPal account.
This is not you?
Cancel Now
Payment sent to support@spotify.com
Merchant
Spotify Limited
support@spotify.com
Instructions to merchant
You haven't entered any instructions.
02 Jan 2018 00:11:12 GMT
Transaction ID: 7486465006
You authorised
The link in the phishing email message goes to a fake PayPal website (hxxp://pay-pai-receipt-id-10051895.com.web-page128491025812.com), which has been created by cyber-criminals to trick their potential victims into entering their PayPal username, password and credit card information on it. If the requested information is submitted by the potential victims, it will be sent to the cyber-criminals, who will use it to steal their money and use their accounts fraudulently. The cyber-criminals / scammers behind the phishing email message will change the website's name, so look out for similar phishing email messages with links that go to different phishing websites.
If you are tricked into submitting your PayPal credentials and credit card information on the fake web page, please change your PayPal password immediately and contact your bank and let them know that you have submitted your credit card information on a phishing website.
Remember, never click on a link to sign into your PayPal account, always go directly to: www.paypal.com and login from there and check your account for any discrepancies.