Paypal's anti-phishing advice
Oh dear. I just got email from Paypal (and yes, it really is from Paypal - I, unlike most people, know how to check it out properly) advising me about how to protect myself from being ripped off by fraudsters sending spam emails which merely claim to be from Paypal but which actually direct you off elsewhere so they can steal your Paypal username and password. This practice is commonly known as "phishing".
Trouble is, to an unsophisticated eye, phishers' emails look just like Paypal's real emails. What Paypal should do is simply never email their customers except in direct response to the customer doing something on their site, such as sending someone some money. That way, less technologically-literate customers can simply ignore all unexpected mails "from Paypal" and be safe.
That behaviour is good enough for my bank, so I wonder why Paypal don't do it.
And before anyone mutters about what would happen if someone sends me money (which I obviously want to know about) - the person sending it should tell me. And I'll probably make an exception for when I'm selling something through ebay too.
I keep getting phishing emails about my PayPal account. I just delete them.
Posted by Mary on Wed, 27 Sep 2006 at 03:51:27