Where we find perhaps one of the most slippery statements ever by a paypal advisor:
lvlr.lvlonicker wrote:
PayPal says that being addressed by your name proves that the email is genuine.
No... that is not what PayPal says. PayPal says their emails will always use your first and last name, or your business's name. That should not be interpreted to mean that any email which has your first and last name is genuine.
Recently, I received an obvious spoof email from someone posing as Paypal. The email began with Dear Customer and went on to say that I had recently submitted a payment to "Rose City DJ's" I forwarded the email to spoof@paypal.com and deleted it from my account . A few days later, I received an email from Paypal that said the email was not a spoof and was legitimate but thanks for being an alert customer. I searched through my Paypal transactions, thinking my account must have been compromised and eventually called Paypal for help when I couldn't find the charge in my transactions. A nice young man from Paypal told me the email was absolutely a fraud, since all Paypal emails will address me by my name. He couldn't find the charge either and was glad I hadn't clicked on any links.
After Paypal informed me that the Rose City DJ payment was legit, I might have clicked on a link in that fraudulent email to try and figure out what the charge was for or to whom it was made. Fortunately I know better.
Just a heads-up that was just verified by PayPal regarding a personalized Phishing email we received. We received a very authentic looking email regarding our PayPal account, and it even used my correct name in the salutation (which is really unusual), and directed us to the PayPal account. As always, I run the cursor over return mail path and even that initially appeared legitimate, however I logged out, went directly to PayPal and logged in externally. Nothing was amiss, so returned to review the email again. Note the "PayPal" in the email return path has two "L"s:
From: PayPal <service@paypall.com> To: XXXXXX <xxxxx@xxx.com> Sent: Thu, Jul 11, 2013 9:20 am Subject: Your account has been limited until we hear from you Case ID 319-571-330
Just thought I'd through this info out there in case they did manage to grab anybody. If you have responded to this email you may want to review your PayPal account immediately.
This person does not appear to have been exposed in the recent ebaY reviews and guides privacy breach.
Please note that paypal's 'little climbing the corporate ladder', word parsing, game playing stooges and pettifoggers are again on the scene, making sure somehow twist that plain English (if not faulty) warning/advisement from paypal about your proper name salutation as a mark of the real thing, to blame the victim/potential victim.
Just an FYI regarding bogus email from what appears to be "paypal".
Paypal claims that they will ALWAYS address you by your first and last names or by your business names.
They will NEVER say things like "Dear user" or "Hello pay pal member", etc.
I just got an email from "paypal" telling me my account had been suspended for what ever reason, complete with an ID number and various "links" to go to that would "help" me fix the problem.
I suspected it was a fake email, but right away something stood out, and what concerned me was that it WAS addressed to me using my FULL NAME.
I immediately called paypal because of this and they assured me it was a fake.
PLEASE, PLEASE take note that just because your full name is being used does NOT make it authentic.