LISTEN: Cathy Marshall Explains the scams found in the inboxes of some recent Highland Perthshire residents
‘Your account has been suspended’, ‘You have been paid’ and ‘You have been paid too much’ are how some recent email scams are deceiving people into giving away their personal information.
Scammers have been posing as PayPal to get access to the passwords, banking details and sensitive information of people caught in their lie that this email will offer support to a made up problem.
Cathy Marshall, from Pitlochry’s Neighborhood Watch, says: “We all know that email addresses can be faked to make them look as though their coming from legitimate organisations for example TV Licensing, HMRC, ECT. We’ve recently been warned about fake PayPal emails.
“They can appear as coming from Pay Pal services, but if you put your cursor over the persons email address, or click reply, that will reveal the true address of the sender.”
She says that scammers are posing as PayPal so to deceive people into giving away their own personal information.
However, PayPal might get in touch with their customers but they don’t ask for any sensitive information like these scammers have been doing.
Cathy Marshall adds: “Real PayPal emails will come from PayPal.com and they will address you by your first and last names.
“They will not ask for information like your password, bank account details, or credit card information, and they will not contain any attachments or ask you to download or install any software.”
This divides as scammer from a genuine attempt by PayPal to get in touch with a customer in need of, or looking for, support.
Crucially, people should not be ready to give away private information which might make them vulnerable to scammers who are looking to take advantage of them.
To be careful, Cathy Marshall said: “I know it’s easy when we’re in a hurry just to assume that emails are genuine, but please do take the time to check before clicking providing any information on links. Because it could save you a lot of money in the long term.”