Popular banking services simplify money requests for users and scammers alike
Our team recently came across an email that was reported to us by one of our board members as a potential spearphishing attempt. The email was purportedly sent from PayPal, and the purpose of the email was a request for the recipient to send money.
The email certainly looked suspicious, as in this case, it was totally unexpected. However, upon closer inspection, it proved to be a legitimate email from PayPal. This caught my interest, so I resurrected my archaic account to see where it might be coming from.
After some painstaking remembering of my old password, I was greeted by my account’s home page.
Near the top of the page, something immediately caught my eye: The simple ‘Request’ button. Clicking it led me to a guide informing me that I can send a payment request to up to 20 people at once. So, I gave it a shot. I asked my colleague to send me $500, but to make sure he won’t actually go through with it, I purposefully included a strange and suspicious message.
Once I had crafted my request, it was as simple as clicking the ‘Request a Payment’ button. My colleague would then receive my request in an email notification.
In addition to being a user-friendly feature, what makes this functionality even more convenient (for better or worse) is the fact that request recipients don't need to be PayPal users to pay for requests that they receive. All that is required of them is that they have a val ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
