Fake email imitating PayPal “warning” against Bitcoin and crypto purchases spooks users

ayPal users received an e-mail with a warning message asking them to cease any cryptocurrency related activity.

John Wesley, a PayPal user commented to this Cryptocurrency warning:

“I am holding an account from 17 years and just out of nowhere I got an email linked to my message this morning.”
He was among the almost 200 million users who received official emails from the company with a letterhead that was titled ‘Cryptocurrency Warning.’
The message read,

“While reviewing your account, we noticed that your activity involves the trading or transfer of crypto currency which is prohibited under our Acceptable Use Policy. As this is not permitted on the PayPal platform we ask that you cease any activity that results in the trading or transfer of crypto currency. If you continue to engage in this activity on PayPal, we’ll be unable to continue offering our services.”

PayPal Holdings, Inc is an American company that is almost two decades old which operates online payments system across the globe. It is an alternative to traditional paper works and other payment methods as this is completely digital and electronically handled. Many huge online vendors, auction sites, and commercial users operate with PayPal for payment for which the company charges a nominal transaction fee in exchange for benefits.

The email

The warning came with a pre appreciation message.

Many users who tried to reply or contact the company officials have noticed and reported that the emails were not genuine. The company’s customer care officials have also replied to users who tried contacting them, confirming that the emails were fake.

The company has not given out any official statements as of now and has requested for some time. They said they will address one complaint at a time as they do not want to whip up a frenzy.

What tricked the users was that the mail was looked legit and instilled fear in everybody. There are speculations and skepticisms in various reddit forums saying this is indirectly related to an attempt to manipulate prices of Bitcoin.

Here are a few user examples who received emails:

Sushanth posted on a forum,

“I got this message from “[email protected]” addressed to my name with proper text and graphics. It fooled me until I called their phone support to verify it’s fake. PayPal confirmed to me over the phone that the email is fake. PayPal is not banning accounts with cryptocurrency activity. This is a sophisticated attempt to manipulate the price of Bitcoin.”

David Veksler of the Foundation for Economic Education and the Atlanta Bitcoin Embassy explains:

“It appears to be legit, I checked the from address and the DKIM. Then I called PayPal support and she said that from the email address, it does not appear to be legitimate. She then checked my account and said that it is fine – there are no flags of any kind on it. I then posted on the Paypal community site and Reddit, and a bunch of people replied saying that they got the same email.”

A forum commenter questioned, to which another user insisted:

The most recent explanation by a PayPal user was –

“The email address from which the email was received was paypaI.com and not paypa[l].com. The capital ‘i’ was confused for ‘l’.”