This is the second time I receive this e-mail asking me to change my PayPal information-PayPal allows anyone to pay in any way they prefer, including through credit cards, bank accounts, buyer credit or account balances, without sharing financial information.

this is the e-mail:

Dear valued PayPal® member:

Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the paypal
account we have issued this warning message.
It has come to our attention that your PayPal® account information needs to be
updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to
reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could please take 5-10 minutes
out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into
any future problems with the online service.
However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension.
Please update your records on or before May 20, 2008.
Once you have updated your account records your paypal account
service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.
To update your PayPal® records click on the following link:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run
Thank You.
PayPal® UPDATE TEAM

The first thing that is not right in the e-mail is the URL; PayPal uses the secure HTTP socket layer. The authentic PayPal URL should look like this https://PayPal.com.If you click on the e-mail URL it will redirect your browser to a fake PayPal website which looks pretty much like the authentic PayPal website.

The image above is the fake PayPal website, if you notice it looks just the same as the authentic one, only the URL is weird. The domain is ml2z4abgrq23.az.pl. PL is the country top domain for Poland, which makes me think the website is being hosted there too.

The Conclusion: according to my understanding PayPal will never send members e-mails to update account information. This is a HUGE phishing scam, and you should never reply or take any action when you receive these kinds of e-mails. You have been warned.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 10:37 am and is filed under Windows XP Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.