Authorities Warn of PayPal Scam

MARSHALL — During the fall season, there seems to be an increase of scams that are reported to the local law enforcement agencies, according to the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office. KETK reports the most recent scam is a notice from PayPal. If you quickly read the email, you�ll notice the logo for PayPal is slightly different; the email return for the fictitious account is to a Luxemburg address, and at the very bottom of the page it identifies the email as coming from a �Registered Office: Luxemburg.”

If you are a legitimate PayPal account holder, you might suppose that this is a legitimate request. However, if you respond to this email, it will ask for your credit information and your personal information. Once that has been identified and you have given it to this scam, you might have great difficulty in filing any type of criminal offense since these scammers are outside the jurisdiction of the courts in the United States.

Authorities strongly urge you not to automatically believe that the emails are legitimate. For further information regarding the practices of the legitimate PayPal, go to their website at http://www.paypal.com and click on the �security� tab. Furthermore, officials warn, do not respond to any person asking for you to send money to any address by a �Money-pack, Western Union, or pre-paid credit card.� Again, once you transfer the information to the person requesting it, you may have lost the ability to recover the money. These scammers are actively working to defraud you and deplete your accounts or open new credit accounts in your name and use your identity in the thefts, according to authorities.