Is this a PAY PAL scam??

Just had this from PAY PAL, is it a hoax or is it the real thing??

Dear valued PayPal® member:



PayPal® is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of
buyers and sellers. To protect the security of your account, PayPal employs
some of the most advanced security systems in the world and our anti-fraud
teams regularly screen the PayPal system for unusual activity.

Recently, our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your
account. In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement and to ensure that your
account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited. Your
account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved. This
is a fraud prevention measure meant to ensure that your account is not
compromised.

In order to secure your account and quickly restore full access, we may
require some specific information from you for the following reason:

We would like to ensure that your account was not accessed by an
unauthorized third party. Because protecting the security of your account
is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive PayPal account
features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please
understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection.

Case ID Number: PP-040-187-541

We encourage you to log in and restore full access as soon as possible.
Should access to your account remain limited for an extended period of
time, it may result in further limitations on the use of your account.

However, failure to restore your records will result in account suspension.
Please update your records on or before January 11, 2005.

Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal session will not be
interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your Paypal records click on the following link:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run



Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that
this is a security measure meant to help protect you and your account. We
apologize for any inconvenience.


Sincerely,
PayPal® Account Review Department



PayPal Email ID PP522


Accounts Management As outlined in our User Agreement, PayPal will
periodically send you information about site changes and enhancements.

Visit our Privacy Policy and User Agreement if you have any questions.
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...rivacy-outside

[Watchman]

i've always assumed it's a scam

i've had those and chose to ignore them and i've also forwarded them to paypal for verification

if your account get's closed or whatever, you can always open a new one

[Neil]

Forward it (unedited) to spoof@paypal.com & spoof@ebay.com.

They will email you back & tell you whether it's genuine or not.

HTH.

Originally Posted by Neil

Forward it (unedited) to spoof@paypal.com & spoof@ebay.com.

They will email you back & tell you whether it's genuine or not.

HTH.

Cheers Neil, reps added it just jad me wondering thats all when it said enter your credit card number.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Nidge

Cheers Neil, reps added it just jad me wondering thats all when it said enter your credit card number.

As a rule of thumb, I don't think any firm will ask you for credit/debit card details/passwords etc etc by email.

[paulyoung666]

Originally Posted by Neil

As a rule of thumb, I don't think any firm will ask you for credit/debit card details/passwords etc etc by email.

correct , scam central i reckon

[birchyboy]

I had a very similar one and I have never had a PayPal account, or bought anything using PayPal.

That's a good enough hint to me.

AFAIK it's a Hoax & Scam - ignore and delete it

[andygrif]

You should always check the link address supplied in it. Never versions of Outlook display the actual address you'll be takehn to if you click it when you hover your mouse over it. Older ones don't, so beware of clicking.

As Neil said before it's good to send these to Paypal and Ebay and they'll tell you if they are not phishing atempts.

Not TOTALLY convinced this is a scam - the link seems genuine, unlike the various scams I've seen in the past. However the best advice under these circumstances is to log into your account as usual, i.e. NOT via the email link. And it is better to be safe than sorry. If you e-mail PayPal and get a response, please share with us. In general, if I ever received something like this which MIGHT be genuine, I would still log in to my account normally and NOT follow any links in the email. The other thing to check regularly is that nothing has 'tweaked' your HOSTS file (<windows directory>\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) to add a false IP address for www.paypal.com (or any other site) - that's the REAL danger!

The link will look genuine as it is copied and pasted from the e-mail, you cannot see from this where the link in the e-mail is really pointing.

Good point - I hadn't thought of that - definately a scam then.

When you look at the mail on the top right hand side it says to Auction

PayPal® Account Review Department
PayPal Team [support@paypal.com]
To Auction.

Paul has pointed out the flaw in my reasoning. Definately a scam. As I said, never follow links in emails like this.

[OinkyBoinky]

Originally Posted by Nidge

Dear valued PayPal® member:

you can tell its a scam from the first line! PayPal emails would always ahve your real name... but that doesn't mean if it did have your name it woudl be legit... they may have grabbed your name and email from somwhere else...