# Paypal and other similar payment methods. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 12, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205 "2005-07-12T17:13:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/1 "2005-07-12T17:13:16Z")
I don’t have any troubles per se with paypal, but I am consistantly and I mean consistantly getting emails about my account being breached from somewhere. At least once a week. They are not spoof emails. It seems to move in a rhythm of if I buy something with paypal, I seem to get more activity on this matter. The less I use it, the less emails. Does anyone else have this problem with paypal? Also, any other info on online third party handlers of cashola would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/2 "2005-07-13T00:34:12Z")
I’ve never had this issue with PayPal- can you post a copy of what you’ve received? I can’t imagine that they’re real Pay-Pal e-mails. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/3 "2005-07-13T00:44:43Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > I don’t have any troubles per se with paypal, but I am consistantly and I mean consistantly getting emails about my account being breached from somewhere. At least once a week. > > They are not spoof emails. It seems to move in a rhythm of if I buy something with paypal, I seem to get more activity on this matter. The less I use it, the less emails. > > Does anyone else have this problem with paypal? > > Also, any other info on online third party handlers of cashola would be appreciated. How do you know they’re not spoof e-mails? I probably get at least 1 such e-mail a week about security problems with my paypal account, and I don’t even have a paypal account! I’m sure a **real** paypal user will chime in if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall reading that any legitimate paypal e-mails will address you in the body of the e-mail by name (i.e. Dear Canadjun, not Dear valued customer or whatever). Do your e-mails address you in the body of the e-mail by your name? ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/4 "2005-07-13T01:00:01Z")
WEll, the irony is that they go to my secondary email account that I had originally set up Paypal and Ebay up with. ( I was getting buttloads of spam there, so I went over to Gmail, which has better filters.) Whenever it is through that address, I can log on to the paypal site with no worries (which I never do in the event it is a spoof.) I always log in seperately to protect myself. ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/5 "2005-07-13T01:20:40Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > WEll, the irony is that they go to my secondary email account that I had originally set up Paypal and Ebay up with. ( I was getting buttloads of spam there, so I went over to Gmail, which has better filters.) > > Whenever it is through that address, I can log on to the paypal site with no worries (which I never do in the event it is a spoof.) I always log in seperately to protect myself. A friend of mine got a spoof so real that it nearly fooled me, and I can usually spot them a mile away. I HAVE had problems with my Pay Pal account (I got overdrawn once) and I STILL didn’t get an e-mail from them. The only e-mail communications I get from Pay Pal are about new features or privacy notices. Never, ever anything account related. I’d be interested to see the actual mail. (or you can forward me one at suzette100 @ yahoo dot com if you want- I’m just curious if it’s the same one my friend got). ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/6 "2005-07-13T01:39:14Z")
According to [PayPal’s own web site:](http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_privacy-outside#security) > [@](#): > > Any e-mail or other communication requesting your password, asking you to provide sensitive account information via email, or linking to a website with a URL that does not begin with [https://www.paypal.com/](https://www.paypal.com/) should be treated as unauthorized and suspicious and should be reported to PayPal immediately… It seems to me that ANY e-mail claiming that your PayPal account has any problem of any sort with a link for you to click to “rectify” the situation should be regarded as a phishing attempt. When in doubt, manually go to PayPal’s site yourself in a separate browser and check out your account info there. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/7 "2005-07-13T06:04:38Z")
> [@](#): > > When in doubt, manually go to PayPal’s site yourself in a separate browser and check out your account info there. xactly ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/8 "2005-07-13T07:49:55Z")
Would you care to post the text of one of these emails here? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/9 "2005-07-13T12:32:09Z")
Paypal is the #1 target for phishing scams, mostly because they do all their business by e-mail and thus the idea of an e-mail message is more believable than from a regular bank (though people fall for those, too). The key indicator of a phishing scam is that the message makes it seem like you need to go to the website **RIGHT NOW!!!** or dire things might happen to your account. See [http://www.antiphishing.org/](http://www.antiphishing.org/) for more information, but I’ll bet you’ll find most of the messages you received listed there. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-and-other-similar-payment-methods/312205/10 "2005-07-13T12:43:46Z")
> [@BoBettie](#): > > A friend of mine got a spoof so real that it nearly fooled me, and I can usually spot them a mile away. I HAVE had problems with my Pay Pal account (I got overdrawn once) and I STILL didn’t get an e-mail from them. The only e-mail communications I get from Pay Pal are about new features or privacy notices. Never, ever anything account related. I’d be interested to see the actual mail. (or you can forward me one at suzette100 @ yahoo dot com if you want- I’m just curious if it’s the same one my friend got). Will do when the next one strolls in, which should be any day. I’ll post it here. I hope I am not being so dense.