PayPal eBay Payment Email Scam

PayPal eBay Payment Email Scam

This PayPal, eBay payment email scam is a convincing attempt to get your PayPal log in information or infect your computer with malware. Delete this email if you receive it in your inbox.

Figure A shows the email caught by our spam filters. It is well branded and fits the typical email style for a PayPal payment notification for an eBay purchase. The subject line reads “Receipt for Your Payment to AU-AdCommerce-EOM@ebay.com” and the sender is shown as PayPal, but when looking at the email address it is a slightly different version of the official PayPal domain. This is an attempt to trick you – at first glance it can appear as a legitimate PayPal email address.

The purpose of this whole email is to confuse you as to why a payment was made to eBay without your authorisation. The only link in the email is to cancel the payment – which you would be likely to do if you received this email. Do not be fooled! If you are worried, log in to your PayPal account or eBay account as you normally would to check recent transactions.

Figure B is a screenshot we were safely able to capture of the website you will land on if the link is clicked. It is again a very convincing fake version of the PayPal website. Logging into your account here will lead to your details being captured by scammers. Do not log in or go any further.

This email can be extremely dangerous and uses a scare approach with an unauthorised payment to get your attention. Do not click the link in this email and delete it straight away if received. Again, if you are ever in doubt check your accounts as you normally would without clicking links in emails.

Steph Kent
MailShark
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