Security Codes being sent

[SGoodman]

Greetings,

I keep receiving text messages saying "Your security code is: [code] Your code expires in 5 minutes. Please don't reply."

Is someone trying to log into my account? How can I stop this?

I've already changed my password.

Thanks,

Shane.

[Eclectic28]

I had the same issue. I changed my cell phone password and deleted Alexa. Thank you for the good recommendations. I waited for forty minutes to text with someone and was disconnected due to “inactivity”! Excuse me? I am waiting for an agent. I can’t make them respond!

[photolarryg]

I receive a text from PP every time I log in - giving me a secure access code. However just recently I am receiving random texts (when I have not been logging in). This leads me to suspect that someone is trying to gain access to my account without consent. I have tried calling their call centers in India or Philippines where they cannot grasp my concerns. They basically offer to turn text notifications it off. I try to labor the point that turning it off wont reassure me, it will literally mask the possibility that my account has been hacked. Can someone please point me to a telephone number in the USA (I've tried all the ones from paypal ) where I can actually get some help.

[PayPal_JonK · Accepted solution]

Hello @photolarryg and everyone else,

Welcome to the PayPal Community! I can certainly understand how receiving security codes that you have not been requesting is pretty frustrating. A sure-fire way to fix this is to update the email address you use to login with PayPal. I would also recommend updating your password just in case that has been compromised as well. Hopefully by updating your login information, whoever is trying to login to your account won't prompt a security code to be sent to you. 

Good luck, 

 - Jon K

[Bhroozdawoode]

Hello ok

[Lemmor]

I keep receiving txt saying my paypal code im not even asking paypal for it.

[Xandler]

I just received a random text with a security code from "Paypal", I use that in quotes because the fake one uses a 6 digit number (I logged into the real Paypal to change some stuff), they use a 5 digit number. It's scare tactics, they want you to think someone is trying to access your account.

[PayPal_JonK]

Hello @Xandler, 

Welcome to the PayPal Community! I'm sorry to hear there's some confusion on some security codes being sent from PayPal. Depending on the situation and/or the country you're logging in from, PayPal may send our security codes from a 5-digit or 6-digit number. You can normally tell the fake messages from the real ones as the fake ones will have some kind of link in them (which you should never click) or some sense of urgency like "your account is limited, click here!" (which again, don't click anything). If it's just "Here's your security code, don't share your code" or something of the sort, it's probably from PayPal. At that point, you may want to log into your PayPal account and see if there's any activity you don't recognize and / or update your password and / or security questions. 

I hope this information helps, 

 - Jon K

[idle_user]

This is still going on. Received 6 yesterday and it's starting again today. There is definitely automated fraud attempts going on.

[efraindelarocha]

Did you ever change your password. Try this go to your account go to security ,manage your logins and remove all logins.

[efraindelarocha]

Other recommendation i can give is use an authenticator instead of receiving text messages. But i will warn authenticator apps are only good till you delete them or data wipe your phone or any crucial step such as that. So basically this is not backed up on a cloud anywhere. Being said its fairly easy to make copys of your authenticator onto different devices just in case such a catostrophy would happen to you. Me myself im religious about password managers and keeping my accounts safe. I turn off all save passwords features on all browsers and only use bitwarden as my rule them all password manager. I use its password generator to generate unique passwords so that no password of mine is doubled. But again this is just me. You have to make sure you enable the auto fill correctly on android by giving your phone permissions. If anyones life here changes due to my recommendation be sure to send me a shout out. Oh and do use the bitwarden extensions on your chromium browsers and firefox browsers people. Set your setting to lock account after several minutes if its not your personal computer other wise i me personally leave it unlocked since the windows lock is good enough for my needs. Again all i need is kudos if i changed your life.