A couple years ago, I was signed up for a Paypal account. However, after reading some of the horror stories about PayPal, I closed the account (before putting a single dime in, or giving any banking information). I knew my e-mail would be in the database for all eternity (PayPal sucks like that), but since I had no confidential/dangerous information stored at the same time, I figured I was safe.
Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Paypal, saying someone has hacked into my account, and it has been placed on security. To recap: someone hacked into a non-existant account, which had absolutely zero dollars in it, which had NO INFORMATION WHATSOEVER THAT COULD BE USED FOR FINANCIAL PURPOSES, and PayPal is warning me about it, despite me no longer being a customer.
Just to be fair, I tried to login to the PayPal site. Sure enough, they have my email address, but not my password (when I asked for a new password, they said I was no longer a member). So, that could mean a few things:
The email was one of the infamous hacking emails, which allow you to open your account to all sorts of evil people.
My email was indeed hacked, but since there was absolutely zero information of value with it, my account is safe (especially since I switched banks a month ago).
Someone hacked into the database, stole my name, and is using it for various evil deeds somewhere in North Dakota.
Problem 2: Fax Spamming
Someone has been spamming my dad’s fax machine. They have been shoving credit card offers, hotel advertisements, and even coupons. Apparantly all the telemarketers found a new way to torment the innocent people of the world. Since there is a charge on both sides for faxing, my dad is in a rage about this, and has sworn to hunt down whoever is sending these and kill them.
Maybe the two are related; maybe whoever hacked into PayPal found my fax address and is using it to spam. Either way, it’s annoying, troubling, and potentially dangerous.
The email was most likely one of the hacking emails. If paypal says you aren’t a member anymore then I wouldn’t worry. As for the fax machine, I have a feeling that the two problems aren’t related, and are just a coincidence.
As for fax spam, they’re at least generally more legit than spammers, because it costs them for a local call each time they send a fax (or at least ties up their phone lines). If you call the number on the fax and ask to be taken off the list, they generally do so within a week.
At least that’s my experience with them (I had it happen twice, and both times they took me off).
I don’t know of any horror stories using paypal. I’ve been using it for almost 4 years now and I can only give them and their customer service glowing reviews. If you have any questions regarding what happened in your first point, you should call them and they’ll be more than happy to straighten things out.
And I don’t see how the first 2 would be related. Now let’s say they were, that would have less to do with paypal and more with shit on your end as it would mean someone’s got a trojan on your computer or has an eye on you somehow, which I find very very unlikely.
So like Nulani said, 1 is a scam, 2 is bloody unlikely.
I’ve received e-mails from “PayPal” and “ebay” saying that my account is under a security watch for some reason or another… they’re all spoofs. If you get a message like that from a seemingly legitimate source, open a new browser window, go to that company’s website, and find their account security page, where you can find out about the spoofing and what to do about it.
People will just send these things fishing for people who actually have accounts who will log in through the links provided in the fake messages.