Nine Ways to Identify Fake Paypal Email And Prevent a Paypal Scam

I almost became a victim of a scam which involved PayPal, this made me learn a lesson and below are a few tips which will prevent you from being fooled by scammers.

Here is how the story goes:

I gave an ad for an item of mine for sale. Few days later I receive an email which stated that a person is ready to pay me the shipping charges a long with the cost of the item and I should send the item to Nigeria. I received more a few emails which had the same situation. I replied to one of those and the person also replied me back. I asked him to pay me and then I got an email from PayPal (which was a spoof).

Now below are few tips which will help you in preventing yourself from getting caught in scams:

No Redirection Link

Be sure that if you receive an email from PayPal there is no link in the email which redirects you to some other website or asks you to enter your password. 

Proper Username

An email from PayPal will always contain your proper full name which is registered in their records and is mentioned as your account name, if an email says something like "Dear User" or "Dear Seller" then it could be suspicious.

PayPal Staff Speaks Fluent English

If you receive an email from PayPal, be sure to reach each and every single word of it carefully. PayPal is an American company and even their auto-generated emails contain flawless english but if you receive an email which says the name "PayPal" but it contains lots of grammatical errors or some other language related problem it could be a spoof.

Check Your Account

If you ever receive an email by the name of PayPal which says that you have received some amount and now to verify you need to send the shipping details or shipping receipt then straight away check your PayPal account by signing in your PayPal account. If you ever receive some money or if there is a purchase or sale related transaction your PayPal account will speak for itself so don't believe the email but believe your PayPal account.

Emails From or Related to Nigeria

These most of the scams or spoof emails are related to Nigeria in some way or the other. If you get an email which says that a person wants to pay you or if you need to pay someone who lives in Nigeria then this most probably will be a scam, especially if the city "Ibadan" is mentioned. I am not saying that all of them will be scams mails but probably they will.

Check Other Emails Received from PayPal

When you receive an email which you think might be suspicious then refer back to all the previous emails which you have received from PayPal for receiving or sending funds. You might be able to find a few differences in the original emails and the suspicious emails. Maybe the language won't be good enough, the PayPal office address could be wrong or there could some other mysterious signs.

Emails with Strange Titles 

I received two emails which were spoofs and they had some strange things in them which made them suspicious to me. Below you will find a sample.

In the above photo the title seems to be very ambiguous and PayPal never sends an email which such a title. The statement "You've got new funds!!!" is also a strange statement which usually never seen in an email from PayPal.

In the picture above a Nigerian address can be seen and most Nigerian address related emails are scams. The "processing" logo is also something which also very unusual and is never seen in any PayPal email.

The picture above shows how a spoof email will address a PayPal user without the full registered name. The outlook of the email is also very much unlike original PayPal emails.

Go to the Resolution Centre

If you get an email regarding the pending payment or any other transaction related email about which you are not sure then just go to the resolution centre in your account and if you don't find anything related to the email that has been sent to you then it means that no such transaction has taken place and the email which you have received might be a spoof.

Forward the Mail 

The best and the easiest way to check if the email has been sent by Paypal or not is by forwarding the suspicious email to spoof@paypal.com. Once you do so in a time frame of 5 to 10 minutes you will receive an email from PayPal which will tell you if the email was sent from PayPal or not.

Hopefully the tips given above will help you from being scammed when using PayPal.