Advice regarding possible Paypal scam

Ste59w · 8 Sep 2011 at 14:47

Hi guys.

My mom uses ebay and has paypal setup as a payment method. She hasn't ever sold anything and hasn't purchased anything in a few months.

Recently she got an email from paypal confirming 70 pounds had been paid into her account from an ebay transaction. The seller had a similar email address but it was atleast 6 characters different.

Then a second transaction the next day - mom's paypal account is now locked, apparently though its a random thing to check security and not related - they want her to enter her bank details to unlock it. She is not comfortable doing this and doesn't want to ring the premium rate number to resolve an issue she should have no involvement in.

Same day she gets an email from seller responsible for transaction 2. The email he uses is something like [email protected] - he claims in the message he made a mistake and his paypal email address is the same as my mom's only he is @hotmail.com and accidently entered .co.uk. I see this email and fire off a quick response to the .com - it bounces back as none existant.

We send paypal an email and leave it till today. Today Paypal have confirmed the account is now locked for investigation and for us to log in to respond - however still have the bank account lock on the account and Mom still not confortable putting in those details.

A second email arrives today - looks exactly like a Paypal email, asking us to log in to once again restore the account - this time however its not coming up as a trusted email and the link to paypal in the contents of the email goes to mail0.paypal.com or some variation - slightly worried.

We are unsure how to act now, so any advice appreciated.

8t10 · 8 Sep 2011 at 14:51

Bit sus I will agree, mailo.paypal.com also doesn't exist.

Email paypal support? Thats a way around the premium rate number. They are normally very good. But don't give the bank details to them either. Be wise.

div0 · 8 Sep 2011 at 14:52

Never follow any links from an email, even if you're confident it's genuine.

Go to the Paypal site on a trusted machine. Login and follow any security measures on their site, to regain access to your account.

Ste59w · 8 Sep 2011 at 14:55

It wasn't the exact link i put in the post, but if that is allowed I can post a proper screenie and a link?

kylew · 8 Sep 2011 at 14:57

PayPal's phone number isn't actually a premium rate, however here's an alternative one that's a land line number:

020 8605 3000

eBay UK main menu; select option 1 to be put through to PayPal (same as calling through 0870 730 7191)

Courtesy of "Say no to 0870". Give them a cal land sort it out that way.

div0 · 8 Sep 2011 at 14:59

The actual email address and link are irrelevant.

The address that the email 'appears' to have come from, probably won't be the account it was actually sent from. Just because it says '[email protected]' in the 'from' field, doesn't mean anything. NEVER trust that information to be right.

Any URL links in an email are also irrelevant. NEVER follow links from an email. Go to the site direct, preferably using a PC which you know to be 'safe' (ie no suspicion of a virus etc).

stoofa · 8 Sep 2011 at 15:39

The Paypal site is secure.
So, go directly to paypal.co.uk and enter the requested details to unlock the account.
Entering your bank details at the Paypal site is purely a security measure - you must have entered them there before or else they wouldn't be able to use your bank details as a security test - they would have nothing to compare them with.