We are full in  the holiday season and it’s also scammer season. It about noontime and I check my email. I received an email supposedly from PayPal, stating that my account has been suspended. When you get notifications like this, your body reacts. Heart racing, fight or flight kicks in, your mind in a whirl. Crap! Thoughts of who stole my account and I really did not mean to shop while at a coffee shop with my credit card, play havoc upon you. Now what do I do?

I can help.

First, breathe.

Then quite simply move your cursor on top of the address that states PayPal. Hold the cursor and you will notice that the sender does not have a PayPal account.

It will anger you but, you will only waste your time in replying to them for their fraudulent behavior. Replying to the dummy address will only cause a bounce back or address not found or some other reason. What you can do is to forward this type of email to PayPal’s spoof account.

From PayPal’s directions:

If you believe you’ve received a phishing email, follow these steps right away:
  1. Forward the entire email to spoof@paypal.com.
  2. Do not alter the subject line or forward the message as an attachment.
  3. Delete the suspicious email from your inbox.

Scammers leave clues.

Remember, keep calm and breathe.