“Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” phishing scam - How to remove

“Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” is a phishing scam disguised as a warning from Paypal. The message delivered by this spoof website tries to trick you to contact scammers who would lure your passwords and other private information from you. Falling for this scam is potentially very dangerous — PayPal is used by over 277 million people worldwide. Having your PayPal account hijacked can be very devastating.

If you encountered the fake “Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” warning, it would be beneficial to find what linked or directed you there. Then you can get rid of the root problem and avoid being lead to other illegitimate websites or even having your computer infected with malware.

How to know the warning is fake

Even if “Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” looks legitimate at first, there are a few red flags that indicate that this is a spoof webpage. The URL is not associated with PayPal, the English is bad, the links at the footer are fake (they don’t lead anywhere), and the warning is accessible to anyone who types in the address of the site, even if they don’t even have a PayPal account. Most importantly, the given phone number does not seem to be associated with PayPal. All these signs ought to make you suspicious.

This is the message on the spoof website:

Your Account is on temporary hold!!

We Have Detected A suspicious Activity on Your Account, Call Customer Support Expert Verify Your Identity and Get Your Account Unblocked.

Contact Customer Support Call +1(866)-661-2666

Often links to PayPal phishing sites come in spam emails. The messages might be using official logos and the same layout as the real PayPal emails, but they have a few signs that indicate that they shouldn’t be trusted:

• Your name being omitted — usually, PayPal will call you by your name in their emails, but scammers who send malicious spam in bulk have no way of knowing each recipient’s information.
• Attachments that you are urged to open — PayPal will never attach files to their emails to you.
• Messages about transactions that you did not expect — this does not always indicate a scam, but it is how scams often behave; just make sure that you are logging in to PayPal through the official website to check the situation.
• Disguised links — if a link came in a PayPal email and it does not lead to an official PayPal website, be careful before you do anything. A phishing site is can capture the login details that you put in, then log you into the real PayPal site — without you even noticing anything strange.

If you received the link to “Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” in your email, consider reporting it to PayPal.

 

Why you are seeing the warning

Links to deceptive sites like “Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold”, Amazon Shopper Satisfaction Survey, and You’ve Made The 5-billionth Search are not always distributed by email. If you are seeing the warning often, or if you see it without clicking on a link, the cause could be malicious ads and redirects. These can be the result of adware or browser hijackers having infected your computer.

Of course, malicious ads can be encountered without the help of any malware. Usually, reputable advertising networks reject ads which are dishonest, lead to scams, or are used to spread malware. However, sometimes a few slip through and show up even on trusted websites.

Get rid of the “Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” warning

Adware could be directing you to “Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” and other malicious websites regularly. If that’s what is happening, and you’re not sure which application is responsible, you can use Spyhunter, or another professional antivirus program to scan your machine for malware. Getting rid of adware will help you avoid future malicious ads and even worse malware.

If you verify your identity over the phone as the text of the “Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” scam says, you’d be giving your private data to a scammer. If you give away your password, you risk having your PayPal account being hijacked and losing money. If you give away your other private information to the criminals, you risk identity theft or targeted phishing attacks.

Ultimately, “Your PayPal Account Is On Temporary Hold” is a social engineering attack. If you only visit the site, it doesn’t infect your computer, and you’re probably fine. Just do not give away your login information to anyone. If you did, contact PayPal support immediately. If you think that your banking information has been exposed, contact your bank also. Finally, scan your machine for malware and remove threats that are found.

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