Residents urged to be wary after rise in hoax Paypal emails

The chairwoman of Newbury and Thatcham neighbourhood watch, Angela Money, received an email earlier this week purporting to come from the security office of Paypal, the popular, and safer way for paying for goods, or sending goods around the world. It claimed to be offering extra protection to Paypal’s online customers.
Mrs. Money checked its source and found that it had come from Australia.
Mrs. Money said: “The email is so convincing that anyone with no experience of email scams could easily think it was genuine.
“Having claimed that my Paypal account had become insecure, I was asked to log into my Paypal account and follow the guidelines, and in return I would be given greater protection.
“This would have given the fraudsters my password, address, and other private financial details.
“Obviously I cannot be the only intended victim in and around Newbury, so I warn everyone to be alert, as these ruthless crooks are hoping to obtain all sorts of personal information that would be used to obtain money from them.
“I became suspicious when I realized the bogus email had not arrived on the address I use for Paypal, otherwise I would probably have fallen for it.”