Client : PayPal Country : Singapore

Publication : Marketing-Interactive Section : China

Date : 22 July 2014 Type : Online

Topic : PayPal’s struggle with online

doppelgangers

Circulation : 23,875 (Monthly Views)

URL : http://www.marketing-interactive.com/paypal-warns-users-scammers-using-

name/

PayPal’s struggle with online doppelgangers

A police investigation has been launched for an online scam where several scammers posed as

online payment facilitator PayPal.

According to The Straits Times, these scammers sent fake emails to various e-commerce sites such

as STClassified, eBay and GumTree pretending that payments had been made for fake transactions.

The goods were then shipped to an overseas address. According to the article, at least 27 cases are

being investigated, amounting up to a loss of SG$33,000.

When reached by Marketing, a PayPal spokesperson was unable to clarify how many of such cases

had occurred. However she added that PayPal regularly scans for unusual activity in its system to

detect and stop fraudulent transactions before it affects users.

“We adopt multi-factor authentication where users are authenticated using hundreds of independent

factors including IP addresses, devices, transaction and behavior patterns and network information to

evaluate every transaction,” she said.

She added that PayPal also has buyer and seller protection policies to safeguard users from fraud

and unauthorised transactions and it works “very closely” with law enforcement and industry

organisations dedicated to fighting spoof and identity theft.

Meanwhile, PayPal has also added several guidelines for users to verify that transactional emails

aere genuine.

Here are its guidelines:

· Emails from PayPal will always address you by your first and last names or by your business

name. We never say things like “Dear user” or “Hello PayPal member.”

· Our emails don’t link directly to pages that ask you to enter sensitive information like your bank

account, credit card, and I.D. card. Customers who receive what looks like a fake PayPal email, or

have come across a spoof PayPal website, should report it to us by forwarding the original email or

URL to spoof@paypal.com <mailto:spoof@paypal.com>

· Should you receive emails about transactions made with PayPal, always confirm if a payment

has been received or made by logging into your PayPal accounts and checking their account balance.

· Don’t click on links in an e-mail (instead, type the address directly into your browser)

· Don’t provide personal or financial information in response to an e-mail

· Be extremely cautious about attachments in e-mails, especially if you haven’t positively

identified the sender and you weren’t expecting an e-mail

PayPal’s struggles only highlight companies’ challenge in establishing authenticity and trust when it

comes to the digital realm.

For example, earlier this year, LinkedIn launched a lawsuit against scammers for creating thousands

of fake profiles in order to scrape data off existing users.