I know phishing and other malevolent communication when I see it. But recently, I've been getting spam from one of my favorite web swevices, PayPal. Very disappointing!
And the origin of this spam was creepy all by itself. It started three days ago. My car has a few scratches in its year-old paint, and somewhere I came upon an ad for a "Sparkle Magic Cloth" that claimed to remove minor scratches with a mere swipe. I knew better than to click on the ad. Instead I went to my Amazon account and looked this product up and read some owner comments. It took only a few to convince me it is a poor product, and I let the matter lie.
Or at least I thought I did. The day before yesterday I got a message from PayPal offering me a discount for buying this thing through them. Today I got another email from Paypal offering me a bigger discount. And yes, after 30+ years of working in tech I know the real thing when I get it.
I did not respond to either promo, but I'm left wondering if PayPal's current owners are dissatisfied with their hugely profitable cash cow of a service, and are looking for new ways to monetize it. Even worse, could they be in cahoots with Amazon, using their customer browsing as a source for leads? I can only hope not. But further suspicious follow-ups from PayPal to my purchasing research will be followed up promptly by my closing my PayPal account for good.
