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Because PayPal primarily communicates with its customers via email, scammers constantly target the company using email phishing campaigns.
Some of these scam emails are rather crude and are easily recognisable as fraudulent. But, others are quite sophisticated and, at least at first glance, they may look like genuine PayPal notifications.
Here’s a tip that can often help to quickly identify a fake PayPal email. Genuine PayPal notification emails will ALWAYS address you by name. They will NEVER use generic greeting such as “Dear Customer” or “Dear [your email address]”. Nor will they omit the greeting altogether as some scam emails do.
So, if you receive an email that uses a generic greeting that does not include your name or does not have a greeting at all, be very wary. Don’t click any links or open any attachments that the email contains.
Remember, it is always safest to login to all of your online accounts by entering the address into your browser’s address bar or via an official app.
You can report PayPal phishing scams via the reporting address listed on the company’s website.
Screenshot of a typical PayPal phishing scam email:
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