Ed Earns

After I made a Paypal transaction online, I received an email from PayPal themselves notifying me of a Limited PayPal Account Access being done to my account. I was shocked! – I still had some funds I needed to withdraw at that week because of an important trip that I’ve been saving for.

Of course, with these Paypal emails, I usually don’t believe them right away and I have a better eye in checking for PayPal scams. However, this seemed legit because of so many ways. Here’s a body of the Paypal email message I got:

Dear Edxxx Sxxx,

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal system. During a recent screening, we noticed an issue regarding your account.

We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party. Because protecting the security of your account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection.

Case ID Number: PP-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

For your protection, we have limited access to your account until additional security measures can be completed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

To review your account and some or all of the information that PayPal used to make its decision to limit your account access, please visit the Resolution Center. If, after reviewing your account information, you seek further clarification regarding your account access, please contact PayPal by visiting the Help Center and clicking "Contact Us".

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department

It was written in all plain text and the email addresses on the email header were correct. I was scared shit of what might happen to my account knowing that I still had about 300 dollars left which I was planning to use for a trip.

So when I logged in back to my Paypal, I had to follow a few steps in order to restore the limited access of my PayPal account.

Here are the Steps that I took in order to restore Security and access my Paypal again.

How To Restore PayPal from Limited Access Notification Email

Step 1: Update Your Credit Card or Bank Account Details

Step 2: Enter a New PayPal Password and Pick Out your Security Question & Answers

Step 3: Confirm Your Email Addresses that are Linked To Your PayPal Account

 Step 4: Verify Your Email Addresses again   

Step 5: Once You Click Submit, You’ll be taken Back to Your Account Overview Screen in Paypal.

What happened after all the filling out of data was that I was greeted back to my account with my balance still intact. Phew!

Those steps in updating my account and security were good but I’m glad that the Limited Access Notification Email was just a false alarm. The email was legitimate but I thought my account was really put on hold. But it wasn’t!

I was wondering too, because the previous transaction that I made which was withdrawing money in Philippine Peso currency was reversed and I had to withdraw the Peso amount again in PayPal. I immediately took the remaining money that was left in it; including the dollars that was available.

Situations like these, I am wary and I feel a bit crazy because of how easily the money can be thrown away after how many months of saving it. I’m just glad that PayPal has never let me down so far.

I also received another update in my email wherein PayPal apologize for the inconvenience that they caused due to this recent security update and that they wanted to make my account secure. My PayPal account has been successfully restored!

Word of warning to my readers: Always make sure that the email comes from PayPal themselves and make sure that it’s not a scam. Here’s an entry on how I was able to detect some PayPal email scams.

You have to do better than that you Paypal scammers!

This is the second time that I received an email from somebody who was claiming that they’re from PAYPAL, telling me to update my records to protect my account. I checked my Yahoo email one morning and got this message below telling me that my account will be suspended on September 20 in case I don’t update my records.

I am more vigilant in detecting these Paypal Scams but there are still a lot who are not aware to distinguish the fake ones from the real ones. That’s why I took the time to create this blog entry to help out and spread the news on How to detect Paypal Email Scams. I’ve had issues before because somebody hacked my Paypal account but when it was resolved, I was really glad.

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Notice the “To” and “From” fields, it didn’t even put my actual email and their email address is completely a hoax! tp-verify@accouts.net??? Is it even an email at all? I wouldn’t want to use ‘accouts.net’ as an email. Sheesh.

This Paypal scam update told me to update my information by clicking on the link that was written down. They even used a Paypal link to direct it to the page. When I opened the page up, it had a different link altogether! Haha, another trick in the bag that got busted!

I tried to type in some details on the page provided just for the heck of it. You have to give it to them though, it was a fair attempt to imitate the actual feel of the Paypal homepage. They even included some common links that we usually see when we sign in to Paypal as well as a picture of the paypal advertisement.

Upon closer inspection though, I found out that the links for the “Home”, “Personal”, “Business” etc. as well as the footer links were not click-able! My mouse would just treat those links as actual pictures! Except for the Account log-in section, all the other information are illegitimate!

So I typed in a dummy (with a curse) account and password to see where it would lead me to.

When I clicked on “Log In”, it gave me another fake Paypal page that told me to write some more pertinent information. Wow, so many details that they need. Even if they did not ask for my credit card number, enough was already needed to steal my identity and access my Paypal account.

I typed in some more fake information and hit “Enter” to see where the Paypal scam would lead me to.

Alas, filling out all the information, it now directed me to one of the legit Paypal sites! Hmmm. Very funny indeed. I could tell the distinction because of the link which now had an “https” and the domain is from Paypal.com itself.

I could now click on the actual links (Home, Personal, Business etc.) and all seemed normal already. The only problem is that those Paypal scammers/losers have already gotten your information and you would be saying goodbye to your account sooner than later.

I hate these Paypal scammers. People like me are trying to make some decent income and are very thankful for services like Paypal to easily transact business with different people but there are just those scams and fakes that really get into my nerve.

We are glad that we can easily transact with other people using these legitimate platforms but it’s really sad that there are people who don’t have anything better to do but steal your identity and crack you up.

I better report this to the proper people first before an innocent victim falls prey to these losers.

The other day, I received an email from an email address that claimed that they were from PayPal but it went to my SPAM. It was telling me that there was an unauthorized credit card usage on my account. It went like this, I’m copying the message below
———————————-

Dear PayPal user,

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your account.

We requested information from you for the following reason:

We recently received a report of unauthorized credit card use associated with this account. As a precaution, we have limited access to your PayPal account in order to protect against future unauthorized transactions.

Case ID Number: PP-859-350

This is a reminder to restore your account as soon as possible.

Please download the form attached to this email and open it in a web browser. Once opened, you will be provided with steps to restore your account access. We appreciate your understanding as we work to ensure account safety.

In accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement, your account access will remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to restore your PayPal account as soon as possible to help avoid this. We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department

PayPal Email ID PP859350

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I went to Paypal.com to check my account if this was true or not. Definitely, this is a SCAM. Good thing I didn’t follow the instructions and went through the paypal website to check how to detect Scams.

Q: How can I protect myself from PayPal fraud or scams?

A: PayPal is dedicated to fighting fraud and scams. You can help protect your account against PayPal scams by being cautious in giving out your own personal information such as first name, last name, business name, email address, password, financial information (credit card, bank account number, PIN), social security number, and driver’s license number.

Tips to stay safe from PayPal fraud or scams:
Log in safely: To log in to your PayPal account or access the PayPal website, open a new web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer or Netscape) and type in the following: https://www.paypal.com/

Check the email greeting: Emails from PayPal will always address you by your first and last name or the business name associated with your PayPal account. A PayPal scam email may include the salutation “Dear PayPal User” or “Dear PayPal Member”

Look out for attachments: PayPal emails will never ask you to download an attachment or a software program. An attachment found in a PayPal scam email will often contain a virus that can harm your computer or compromise your PayPal account

Never give out personal information: If we require information from you, we will notify you in an email and request that you enter the information only after you have safely and securely logged in to your PayPal account.

Often, PayPal scams will request details such as your full name, account password, credit card number, bank account, PIN number, Social Security Number, or mother’s maiden name.

To learn more about protecting your PayPal account and spotting PayPal fraud or scams, please review our Security Tips.

If you believe that someone may be using your account without your permission, please contact us immediately.

I have yet to send an email to Paypal to alert them about this bogus message. That’s why we need to be careful to ensure that our confidential information doesn’t get released without much thought.