New PayPal Scams: How to Keep the Money You’ve Earned Safe

As a freelance writer, I mostly receive payment via PayPal (I still have a few clients who like to pay by check). In addition to clients, I also receive monies from my ebook sales, affiliate program sales and residual income from my articles on sites like eHow and AssociatedContent.

Bottom line: There are a lot of transactions going on in my PayPal account. So, I try to stay acutely aware of PayPal scams. However, with the worsening economy, there seems to be even more aggressive scammers out there. The following two caught me a bit off guard this morning.

PayPal Scam Alert

This morning, I logged into check my accounts and an email from “PayPal” caught my eye. The subject line was “Dispute Transaction” and the email address that showed in my inbox was “Service@PayPal.com”.

So I opened it and it said the following:

Dear PayPal Member,

This email confirms that you have paid robertoelectronics (roberto211@aol.com) $439.00 USD using PayPal. This credit card transaction will appear on your bill as “PAYPAL robertoelectronics*”.

Then, it had an official-looking PayPal invoice. At the end of the invoice it said:

If you haven’t authorized this charge, click the link below to cancel the payment and get a full refund.

Once I read this notice, I knew it was a scam. Why? Because PayPal doesn’t notify you of “unauthorized charges” and when they do contact you about a transaction, they do it from your account internally. IE, you have to be logged into your account to see any disputed transaction notices.

This is the first time I’ve received a PayPal scam email like this. Even though I knew it was a scam, I immediately logged into my PayPal account to see if someone had hacked it and wiped it out.

All was well with my account. Whew!

AssociatedContent.com Scam Alert

I also received a scam email notice this morning — ostensibly from AssociatedContent. This was a first also. It said the following:

The subject line was: Please confirm payments and PayPal email address‏
The “From” email address was: admin@associatedcontent.com

The notice said:

Before Associated Content can pay you, we need you to confirm your PayPal email address for the following payment(s). bonus $XX.XX Performance Bonus: December 2008

The address we currently have on file for you is: XXX (they had my correct PayPal address). To confirm this address, click here. For non-html email users, please paste this URL into your browser to confirm your PayPal email address:
https://xxxxxx/pay_confirm.shtml?user_id=xxxxx (they had an email address here that looked official)

To change your PayPal email address, log in to www.associatedcontent.com and click on “Update” from the top-right corner of the My Account tab. Important: After changing your PayPal email address, please click on the confirmation link above. We cannot send payment until your new address is confirmed.

As it’s around the time that AssociatedContent (AC) is to dispense my monthly payment for my articles there, if I had been less aware, I could have very easily thought this was a legitimate email from AC.

I logged into my AssociatedContent account just to check though and sure enough, all was fine. I didn’t need to verify anything; my payment was already in progress – as usual.

This was a very slick scam attempt as they had my PayPal payment address correct, and even the amount of my payment correct. But, I still don’t think this is an official email from AssociatedContent because they don’t ask you to verify account information in an email. This should always, always, always be a red flag.

Following is some concrete advice that will keep your PayPal funds safe 100% of the time.

How to Keep Your PayPal Funds Safe 100% of the Time

Never Click a Link in an Email: Never ever click a link in an email you receive – even if it does look like an official email from PayPal or another trusted source. Remember, never!

These are what’s known as phishing scams. The scammers want you to click through so that they can steal your log in information. Once you click to “verify” your information, they have all the info they need to go in and clean your account out.

Type in the Name of the Site Yourself: Always log out of any email that is asking you to verify account information (or some other such jargon), go to your browser and type in the name of the site yourself.

This way, you can be sure that you’re accessing the true site, not some mirror site that you’ll be directed to if you click a link in an email you’ve received.

Don’t Verify Anything: Legitimate sites like PayPal and AssociatedContent and your bank, etc. DON’T ask you to verify account information. After all, you signed up. They already have your info on file. They won’t be asking you for verification – and they would certainly never do it via email.

Tax Time Tip: As tax season is just around the corner here in the U.S., the IRS email scam will start soon. Remember, the IRS is a fuddy duddy organization. They don’t send out correspondence via email. So if you receive an email from the “IRS”, ignore it. They don’t send them out – ever.

When in Doubt, Contact the Company Directly: If you feel the need to address correspondence sent by a “company” (in quotes b/c it’s usually a scam), go to the site, log into your account and send an email or contact them via phone (if this is an option) directly.

Don’t help thieves steal your money. If you do these things, you will keep your PayPal funds – and other monied accounts – safe 100% of the time (excluding professional hackers — which is a whole other ball of wax).

Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial
Posted on January 14th, 2009 and filed under Internet News
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