False Paypal E-mail (Scammer)

[dragontiers]

I received a suspicious e-mail today, claiming to be from PayPal.  I believe it to be a scammer, and would like confirmation.  I do not know if there is anything on your end you can do about it, but I am posting it's contents here for your use:

Notification of PayPal Limited Account Access

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 9:05 PM

From:

"PayPal"

To:

undisclosed-recipients

 

Dear PayPal Customer  

This e-mail is the notification of recent innovations taken by PayPal to detect inactive customers and non-functioning mailboxes.

The inactive customers are subject to restriction and removal in the next 1 month.

Please confirm your email address and credit card information by clicking the link below:

  https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

This notification expires April. 15, 2010

Thanks for using PayPal!

Suspicious elements are the return address (which was service at ncfu.com and not service at paypal.com), the immediate expiration date, and the lack of any of the usual legal disclaimer's at the bottom of the page.  Also, upon logging on to my PayPal account (not by clicking the link) I say no such information anywhere.  Thank you for taking the time to consider this.

[sandypurins]

Another huge clue that it's a spoof is the "Dear PayPal Customer" part... PayPal emails are always addressed to the member's first and last name. In addition, my experience is that a real PayPal "Notification of Limited Account Access" email message contains no links... none... no links whatsoever.

Note... While it is true that all PayPal emails will greet you by your first and last name, it is not true that all phishing emails will greet you with a generic greeting, such as "Dear User" or "Dear PayPal Customer". Phishing emails will sometimes have your first and last name.

[surplusdealdude]

NEVER sign in to your Paypal account from an email link.


And, to make your Paypal account bullet-proof, visit the security center in your Paypal account and buy one of their security keys for $5.  It puts a separate, randomly-generated numerical password on your account that changes every 30 seconds and cannot be hijacked, even if the scammer has your password.