I got a ‘real’ email from PayPal today (There has been some confusion because of the quotes. It really and truly was from PayPal). It is one of the zillions of emails I get all the time that have a PayPal return address. It is one of a handful that’s real… and within that group a smaller subset that wasn’t expected.
It ended up in my spam folder. Even as I began to read it, my original assumption was – scam.
I feel bad for PayPal, which manages to have the least trustworthy return address in cyberspace! There’s a dubious distinction.
What was missing from this email about privacy policies and security was any acknowledgment that PayPal attracts scamming emails the way poop attracts flies. Doesn’t PayPal owe it to their users a brief, “We’ve seen it all and here are some of things you should look out for,” in their emails?
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Unless email is cleaned up soon, its utility to advance our electronic society will stop dead in its tracks. Our email protocols were set up under the false assumption that Internet users would be trustworthy. Duh!
A switchover will be briefly painful and disruptive. However, the longer we wait, the worse the situation will become… and it will have to come. Not that I have to worry. Someone I’ve just met from Benin is giving me a lockbox full of gold bullion.
Dear Sir(s),
I have a great deal of money, over 2.4 trillion waiting for you as your great uncle was a prince. Now just give me your bank account number and i’ll give you have.
Geoff– i’m all for cleaning up the internet.. but if anyone is stupid enough to fall for a 401 scam– then so be it!