OK Is this real or crap

[PHM Racing]

Grow your business with PayPal

Introducing new payment solutions

Hello Mike Coppolino,

I am very pleased to announce that we have recently released new solutions for Canadians who need to accept online payments. Whether you have just started selling online, or you are a growing e-business, our promise is to make it easier so you can focus on building your business.

Sincerely,

Darrell MacMullin

Country Manager, PayPal Canada

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Accept credit cards on your site. Increase sales by 14% with PayPal Express Checkout*. Accept orders by phone, fax, and mail. All with no monthly fees in 2008! Are you ready to go Pro?

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*Applies to online businesses doing up to $1 million/year in online sales. Based on a Q4 2007 survey of PayPal shoppers conducted by Northstar Research, and PayPal internal data on Express Checkout transactions.

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© 2008 PayPal Inc. All rights reserved.

 

[piper_chuck]

The first thing I look for when I receive such an email is whether they provide a link to paypal and suggest I signon using it. If they do, I immediately become suspicious. If there is a link, I put my mouse pointer over it to see what the link would be if I actually clicked on it.

Here's an example (with enough changed to make it no longer work) of a fraudulent link:

http://mail-relay.somenet.cd/icons/maza.php

that was what I would get if I clicked on the link where the text said:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd= login-run

Any time I see a link that's different than the text, it immediately gets forwarded to the site's fraud email address.

My next line of defense is to confirm that the URL actually goes to the company's web site. It's not unusual to see an address that sorta kinda looks like it's valid, but isn't actually. For example (again, with the ipaddress invalidated):

http://nn.nn.nnn.18/.../.paypal-sk...ogin/login.html

Note the clever insertion of "paypal" several times in the URL to make it look valid. Anyone with some internet experience would recognize that the target host is actually the address and the rest is just the path, but that's a subtle thing that would, and probably has, fool many people.

And my final line of defense is unless I am 100% certain I can trust the email, I open a new browser window and go directly to the company web site. Nearly all legitimate companies that extend offers vial email will also give them to you in some sort of inbox you can get to once you login to your account.

Hope this helps...

 

[Dan Hydro]

Mike,

I have received the same thing, when I'm not certain I forward the email to spoof at paypal to ensure if its ligit but this time I forgot and deleted the message.

I did go and logged into my Paypal account and there was no message or anything showing or giving me any indication of something new.

Dan.

 

[PHM Racing]

Thanks for the info , i'm sure it will help anyone that reads it.