Scam phishing email?

[hassgoon]

We need your help
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
Hello *my name*,
 
We regret to inform you that access to your PayPal account has been
limited. To meet financial service industry regulations of our payment
processors, PayPal will need to confirm some of your personal information.
Please provide the following documentation: 
 
     1. A copy of a government-issued photograph identification (i.e.
passport, driver's license), with your date and place of birth. 
 
     2. Documents to confirm that you reside at the address registered on
your PayPal account. In place of a utility bill, we'll accept a copy of a
mobile phone bill or any other official document that confirms you live at
the address listed on your PayPal account. The document provided must be
dated within 90 days of this request.
 
Please ensure you use the cover page provided by PayPal when submitting the
documentation. This ensures that your documents are routed and handled in a
timely manner.  
 
Fax the information to Attention: Compliance at <removed> or mail the
documentation to:
 
   PayPal, Attention: Compliance
   <removed>
   United States
 
You may also upload scanned documentation via the Resolution Center.
 
Please note that for compliance purposes we will be forwarding your name,
address and date of birth to Wells Fargo, one of our bank processing
partners who process transactions on our behalf. By providing the requested
information, you consent to this disclosure. 
 

That is the email I received earlier from service at paypal dot com (Trusted sender on hotmail). There were no links or anything like that so I went to paypal.com, signed in and there was an account limit like it said in the email and it was asking me to submit a photo ID and a utility bill. I wasn't sure what was going on so I called 888 211 1161 and they asked if this was about the limitation, I said yes and they told me to just submit the necessary photocopy documents online which I did.

An hour later,  I did some research and lots of people claimed this is phishing fake scam kind of email so I forwarded the email to spoof @ paypal . com and they replied saying "you were right it seems like a phishing email" then few minutes later I got another mail from <removed> saying my account was fully restored so I signed in to paypal and there was a "your account is restored" message (something along that line).

So my question is how did spoof @ paypal . com determine it was a phishing email even though when I called paypal, it was actually true that my account was limited? Kind of confused. Would appreciate some help

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi hassgoon,

I'm sorry to hear that there was confusion. If you contacted PayPal directly, a representative brought up your account, and you received confirmation that there was a limitation, then the email was likely legitimate. The responder at spoof@paypal.com can occasionally be incorrect, but letting us know that when you talk to a representative will help us to have false positives corrected as quickly as possible.

If you ever have a question regarding something account-specific again, please feel free to reach out to the phone number you called, by our email form, or on Twitter or Facebook.

Olivia