A Gatley resident has got in touch, concerned about a “double-hit” PayPal phishing scam where two emails arrive warning of a possibly fraudulent transaction.  They’re spaced out a little,  to make it seem more genuine (especially as he had sent the first one to PayPal’s phishing department so thought the second might be a reply from them confirming a real issue).

PayPal has a good guide on Phishing.

As a general rule:

• Companies should never ask you for your username and password in an email.
• Don’t trust the address an email appears to come from – they’re easy to fake.
• If in doubt, don’t follow links in emails – type the site name (e.g. www.paypal.com) into your browser bar and go from there.
• Never trust attachments on emails unless you know the sender and you’re expecting to receive it.  If something seems too generic (e.g. “my holiday photos”, “my sexy pics!”) it’s probably dodgy.

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