Paypal account scam: Belgium and France targeted by phishing attacks
Over the next few days, you need to be very careful about the e-mails you receive, as they could be a scam orchestrated by online hackers. Unfortunately, this phishing scam is targeting a large number of people, with French and Belgian mailboxes being affected. Users risk having their personal and banking details stolen if they click on one of the links in the fake e-mail.
A phishing campaign in France and Belgium
If you receive an email from Paypal in the next few days, be careful because it could be an online scam. An online phishing scam is currently hitting French and Belgian inboxes. For those unfamiliar with this widespread online scam, phishing consists of sending a false e-mail to someone with the aim of collecting their personal and banking details in order to steal money. In this scam, which Belgium and France have to deal with, the hackers send emails pretending to be Paypal, the online payment company. Their objective in this scam is to recover users' personal data and bank details for dishonest purposes.
A well-crafted online scam
As far as the email in question in the current scam is concerned, it follows the structure of official PayPal emails down to the last detail. In fact, the graphic charter is exactly the same, with the official colours of the online payment company and a logo placed in the centre, as in real e-mails. They even go so far as to insert the legal information at the bottom of the email, just like the official ones.
The scammers play on fear by announcing that the targeted person's PayPal account is subject to suspicious transactions and that the account has therefore been suspended. Since these are emails that people are used to receiving, users rush to click on the link, in fear that their money will be stolen. In the scam email below, you can see that the text in the paragraph is written without any spelling or syntax errors and uses professional and usual wording, which can totally sow doubt.
However, if you look closely at the e-mail, you will notice something that makes it easy to identify the scam. It's the sender's email address. In the e-mail, the e-mail address used ends with "@skynet.be", which is totally unusual because when PayPal contacts you in the event of a problem, the e-mail address must always contain @paypal and nothing else.
source : Geeko
Tips to avoid this phishing scam
A month earlier, the Federal Police had already alerted the public to this phishing scam targeting PayPal users. To avoid falling for this scam, be particularly careful and avoid clicking on links in emails that may seem suspicious. If you receive an email of this type from Paypal, connect directly to your Paypal account without clicking on the link in the email. This will allow you to check the transaction history on your account yourself.
Another effective way of avoiding this kind of situation is to use a secure payment method such as Obvy. Thanks to Obvy, which guarantees 100% security for your transactions, you no longer have to worry about online scams between individuals.