I got this email today:

Dear PayPal Member,

We recently reviewed your account ,and suspect that your PayPal account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party.Protecting the security of your account and of the PayPal network is out primary concern.Therefore ,as a preventative measure ,we have temporarily limited access to sensitive PayPal account features.

To restore your account access ,please take the following steps to ensure that your account has not been compromised:

1. Confirm your identity by completing the account verification process.

2. Click the "Submit" button at the bottom of the page.You will be taken to the Data Security and Encryption page.

3. Login to your PayPal account and review your recent account history for any unauthorized payments sent or received ,and check your account profile to make sure not changes have been made.If any unauthorized activity has taken place on your account report this to PayPal immediately.

To get started ,please click the link below.

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr_cmd_login-run LINK ACTUALLY TAKES YOU TO http://progresyv.us/

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause ,and appreciate your assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire PayPal system.Thank you for your promt attention to this matter.

Sincerely ,

Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the "Help" link in the footer of any page.

To receive email notifications in plain text instead of HTML, update your preferences here.

PayPal Email ID PP468

Of course, this came to an email address for which I don't have a Pay Pal account attached to.

Steve,

I get those quite often. I just delete them with all the other "junk" email.

I seem to recall PayPal sending out an email warning about this type of activity some time ago.

I wonder how many people get suckered into giving up credit card and bank info?!?

Joel

I get those emails probably weekly! It's crazy how many people in this world are out to get you. The web is like anywhere else...you see a dark alley....you don't go down it.

War

Emails like these are called "fishing." They come with paypal headers, bank headers. They are waiting for people to give them info so they can do identity theft. They send them out by the thousands, but it only takes one sucker to make them rich-- the sucker doesn't even realize that his/her bank account has been totally emptied and credit cards maxed!

No bank will ever send you an email like that, and neither will paypal.

Never send personal information as a reply to an email.

It seems like common sense, but it is amazing how many people go on the internet and lose all common sense...

It's like the folks who responded to a Craiglist ad I put up - I had responed to a previous email that I wanted payment in verified funds and got this back:

___
well i live full time in florida, and i'm a business consultant, i work with some reputable individuals and some organization here in the state, i design marketing strategy called swort analysis,well as i would have preferd to pay you with cash, but right now my account with bank of america is in under investigation,so i can't cashout money nor deposit. as a result of this, bank of america hard to open a personal account for me with Q-CHECK right there in dallas. unfortunatly Q-CHECK does not give out cash nor recieve cash, they operate from check to check.
i needed the iterm to give some one that is dear to me as a present. so if you still
want to sell the iterm to me, so you can forward your name and address for me where
the check will be mailed to you to enable the operation manager write the check with your name which wil lbe delieve to you via USPS..
hope to hear from you soon
__

All kinds of things wrong with this, as one can see. One with his accounts frozen doesn't generally go shopping, especially not for obsolete audio equipment about which one presumes he knows nothing. The broken english is also a cue - "iterm" appearing twice is not a typing fluke. And if the operation manager can write a check, why can't that be parlayed into verified funds? This is pure off-shore scamming, a relative of the usual "I'm the son of a deposed African warlord" scam, but perhaps more credible.

The spelling is often the dead giveaway. Hey, I know my spelling isn't perfect, but it isn't routinely that bad.

Bear

I'm currently helping an African doctor get his funds out of the country, and he's going to help me in return.

War

I bet that Doctor could use some audio equipment. Send me a P1, Dragonfly, and anything else that might help, and I'll start my own charity to get it over there where it is needed.

Regards,

bford

also.... I have not received an email like that, but I can see it fooling people, and that is a very scary thing.