The approach of these fraud attempts is particularly inventive. Perpetrators exploit fear and time pressure by, for example, announcing that the card has been removed and asking recipients to relink it – especially if they did not make the change themselves. They are relying on users to act rashly out of concern for their account instead of first checking whether the message actually comes from PayPal.

How you can protect yourself

To protect yourself, you should delete such emails immediately or move them to the spam folder. In no case should you enter data using the links provided in the email. Anyone who has a PayPal account can safely check the account status directly via the official website or app.