Paypal Scam

This is clever, as it has really taken on the tone and style (look, feel and language) that Paypal uses in its emails and general correspondence. It also appeals to our general desire to provide help to those who ask for it. The giveaways are;

• the email address it was sent to is not one of our standard addresses
• the email address it was sent from is not a Paypal address
• the link address behind the prominent ‘log in now’ button is not a Paypal url. Intead it is hidden behind a Bitly address.  We are seeing that Bitly is being increasingly used by scammers to hide the url
• the email body copy starts without any personalisation
• hidden behind the ‘Help’ link at the bottom is another Bitly link, whilst the ‘Security Center’ link actually doesn’t link to anything

and here is a picture of the Bitly link behind the ‘Log In Now’ button

How to find the URL hidden in the Bitly link

If you add a + at the end of the Bitly link, Bitly sends you to a preview page, which gives the actual url and some interesting information.  I’ve included a picture of the relevant page below.  You can immediately see that these scammers are using a false Paypal url. You can also see the link has been clicked on 77 times since July 8th and the most common location is the UK.

Stay Vigilant