Recognising PayPal Emails

[RWAP]

Does anyone else have problems with identifying valid emails from PayPal?  It is made much harder (and therefore easier to spoof) by the fact that PayPal seem to use multiple email templates.

See the emails below (I have blanked out personal data) - all of which are perfectly valid notifications from PayPal of payments received.  For some reason, one email says that the buyer does not have a transaction id, and the one which was just headed "You've Got Money' fails to supply the buyer's email address.

Spotting these as valid emails and using mail filters to keep all valid paypal emails together notifying of payments received is not easy!

Even worse is when you sell e-services using PayPal as a payment method - you do not always get even the country where the buyer is based, which is essential because of the new taxes which various countries are bringing in to tax e-services according to the location of the buyer!

[PayPal_DavidR]

Hi there,

I see you have not had a response from any of our members to date. Maybe I can help.

Our emails will always address you by your full name and never ask you to click on any links to provide personal information. Should you have doubts about an email you received you can always log into your PayPal account via the website (not a link in the email) to see if the information you received is correct. If you have further doubts about an email you received you can forward it to spoof@paypal.com.

Hope this helps,

-David R

[RWAP]

Yes I know that - but why do you use different formats for the emails notifying a seller of a payment received, with differing amounts of information?

The third example I posted is the worst possible for use by a seller - the name and address appear at the end, but the buyer's email address is not even included (whereas it appears in the other email types).

When you print them off for accounting purposes, the third one wastes a lot of space on the page and is obviously intended as some form of mobile phone display?

It is easy for someone to get a business owner's email and full name (in fact it is listed on the item details page on ebay) - spoofing is not necessarily about asking sellers to confirm links - they could be hoping the seller will automatically send an item out for a payment received, without checking that the payment actually appears in their account!

The third example of the email includes a link to "Get the Details" which takes a seller to their paypal account (where they can see the email address of the buyer and potentially to even find out what has been ordered) - how does that fit in with the PayPal policy that an email will "never ask you to click on any links to provide personal information".  It is certainly a very risky email to receive and action.

Remember that spoof@paypal.com do not always respond to say if an email is valid or not!

[RWAP]

PayPal emails are just getting worse - when you print off a paypal email, it now takes the whole of the first page just to give you the customer name, address and email, and their order goes onto page 2.

I have even received some emails, where the first page doesn't even show the customer name and address !!

Why oh why do Paypal need to waste so much space on the email templates, as well as using 3 or 4 different templates?