Need some feedback on an alleged "PayPal" email I received

[brentspeak]

This is a portion of an email I received, allegedly from PayPal, from the address, "Paypal <[email protected]>". It claims that someone tried to access my PayPal account from a "foreign IP", and asks me to click on some return address that has a "cgi" in it. Notice the misspellings in this excerpt from the email. My feeling is that this is NOT the real PayPal, but some hacking attempt:

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise but not temporaly suspend account.

We ask that you fallow at least 72 hours for the case to be investigated and we strongly recomanded to verify your account in that time.

If you recived this notice and you are not the authorized account holder, please be aware that it is in violation of PayPal policy to represent oneself as another PayPal user.Such action may also be in violation of local, national, and/or international law. Paypal is misappropriate at the request of law enforment agencies to ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Thanks for your patiance as we work togheter to protect your account.

Sincerly,
PayPal Account Review Department
PayPal, an ebay Company

[undeterred]

1. Delete it.

If you login to your paypal account you will get any message they need to give you.

[Left Is Write]

2. Fake. Forward it to [email protected]

or [email protected]

Do NOT click on their link or reply in any way.

[brentspeak]

4. I definitely won't

It scares me that they knew my PayPal email address though.

[Left Is Write]

9. They don't necessarily know.

Spammers and scammers have ways of getting a hold of valid email addresses, but they don't necessarily know that you even ARE a paypal user.

[Orsino]

11. Yes!!!

They don't know your e-mail address, unless they harvested it from web sites or other spammers, in which case they still haven't connected it to any particular PayPal account. They're phishing.

They may simply have guessed your e-mail address via a dictionary attack.

[ghostsofgiants]

12. Yeah, I've gotten Paypal emails to my non-Paypal email address many times

[brentspeak]

5. Do I just forward the email, or add some comment in the header or body?

[Left Is Write]

7. Just forward it.

You can put a small notation like "suspected fraud" in the subject line, but they'll know what to do with it.

[brentspeak]

8. Done as you suggested, thanks.

[sbj405]

3. SCAM. Don't click the link or give any information.

[Dead_Parrot]

6. LOL. Sounds like...

...the instruction manual for a Japanese lawnmower, c.1972: I think even paypal can spell better than that. One more for the trash.

[ghostsofgiants]

13. Hahaha, yeah, the poor spelling might be a tip-off

[nini]

10. paypal will always refer to you by name not 'PayPal' customer

Also, they won't include a link to straigthen out the supposed mess. They will tell you to go to the site and login etc..


that's the easiest way to check these.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

14. Definite phishing..get them all the time