I Got A Scam E-Mail...And I Almost Fell For It

I got an e-mail yesterday from PayPal.

At least, I thought if was from PayPal.

And that's what almost got me in trouble.

My work requires me to complete several on-line trainings. We train on customer service, policy updates, emergency and fire fighting training, harassment and other proper conduct training, even active shooter training. It's all important stuff, but after you've seen the same training several years in a row, you get the "I've seen this before--I know all this stuff anyway" attitude.

One of the trainings we're required to take is internet security. We're taught how to catch scams in their various forms that may come our way. Because of that training, I caught the e-mail scam that I received yesterday.

I don't get a lot of e-mails concerning my PayPal account. After I set it up, the e-mails stopped. It's one of those things I don't think about. Since I haven't used the account in a while, when I saw the e-mail I clicked on the link.

First mistake.

Actually, I made several mistakes before that. If you notice the scammer e-mail, "PayPay" is not in their official logo. Also, what you can't see (because I blocked it out on the pictures...) is the e-mails. The e-mail the scammer used was not the one I used to set up the account. Then there's the biggest clue--the link. It doesn't link to an official PayPal account. 

When the site opened up the page looked official. That page had the PayPal logo on it. It asked for my mailing address and the next thing they wanted was my credit card information. That's when I began to question the e-mail's authenticity. I wondered why did they need my credit card information. That should have nothing to do with my on-line access.

Ahh...there's the scam.

I quickly closed the website and changed my password, even though the password I used to access the scammer's site has nothing to do with my PayPal account. That's when I got the e-mail from PayPal. It has the correct e-mail address I used when I set it up.

I've gone through the training at work each year for several years. Looks like I should pay more attention next time.