This morning I logged into my email to find a very alarming message. It was from Paypal and it was confirmation of payment for a pink Razor cell phone for $239.95. I did NOT make this purchase so I quickly scanned the email for all signs of a fake and saw that it was sent by a valid paypal email address and the entire format of the email matched what I had always received from Paypal. So I clicked on the "Dispute Transaction" link and got the paypal login screen. I logged in and got another screen that asked for my personal contact information as well as my debit card number. RED FLAG! I looked at the URL and saw that it was not a Paypal URL, but something else. So I opened another browser window and immediately logged into my real paypal account, deleted my credit card and banking information, then I closed the entire account, because I had just provided the thief with my login information. Luckily, I was smart enough not to enter my debit card info into the fraudulent URL screen. I forwarded the fake paypal email to spoof@paypal.com. I hope they catch this evil-doer.
I certainly learned a lesson in all this. When I received the email, I should have logged into Paypal separately to see if any transactions had taken place. That would have confirmed that the email was a fake. I hope nobody else falls prey to this scam.
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