Back in the day I used Paypal a few times. Not because I had any desire to, but rather because I once purchased an item or two on eBay. And, back then I also got a load of Paypal-related spam and phishing attempts.
In the almost-10-years since I’ve not used them, and have also have zero Paypal-related spam. Until last week.
I logged in to review my account since it was used to make a single donation to Kiva. And in the intervening week, I’ve had a flood of spam and phishing attempts – which I can only attribute to Paypal having released my email address as again useful for such purposes. Unless it’s one hell of a coincidence, there’s only three options I can see, and none are good!:
- Paypal employees sell my email address and its ‘active-ness’ to spammers and/or phishers.
- Paypal is completely compromised by hackers/crackers/spammers/phishers.
- Paypal IS spamming/phishing (though that seems rather absurd given they have my details anyway).
It’s a good thing I’m well-versed at binning spam and identifying phishes. I worry for those who are not.
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