So you get an e-mail out of the blue that says something like:
PayPal is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of customers. To protect the security of your account, PayPal employs some of the most advanced security systems in the world and our anti-fraud teams regularly screen the PayPal system for unusual activity.
We are contacting you to remind you that on 16 March 2006 our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your account. In accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement and to ensure that your account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited. Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved.
To secure your account and quickly restore full access, we may require some additional information from you for the following reason:
We have been notified that a card associated with your account has been reported as lost or stolen, or that there were additional problems with your card.
This process is mandatory, and if not completed within the nearest time your account or credit card may be subject for temporary suspension.
To securely confirm your PayPal information please click on the link bellow:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run
We encourage you to log in and perform the steps necessary to restore your account access as soon as possible. Allowing your account access to remain limited for an extended period of time may result in further limitations on the use of your account and possible account closure.
For more information about how to protect your account please visit PayPal Security Center. We apologize for any incovenience this may cause, and we apriciate your assistance in helping us to maintain the integrity of the entire PayPal system.
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team
Welcome to the classic PayPal e-mail scam. These type of messages are sent out blindly to millions of e-mail addresses every day in hopes that folks will bite. If you actually have an active PayPal account, your first reaction might be to quickly click the link and log-in. Not so fast! There are two ways you can see if it’s a scam.
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The latest IRS phishing e-mails redirects victims to sites hosted in Russia, and they mimic the actual Internal Revenue Service web site almost perfectly. And to complete the illusion, as soon as you’ve entered your personal and financial information you get redirected to the actual IRS site. Fiendish! Message Labs reports that this type of spam spiked in January, hitting ten times the normal level.The IRS isn’t unaware of this problem - in fact it has a page devoted to warning about scams. They point out that “The IRS does not send unsolicited e-mail about tax account matters to individual, business, tax-exempt or other taxpayers.” If you’re wondering how your refund is doing, go directly to www.irs.gov and check the “Where’s My Refund?” page. Don’t click any links in email that claims to come from the IRS–it doesn’t!