Paypal account reactivation > Appears to force you to consent to Equifax credit check

SpotAShonky
#1

Paypal Australia has been sending out notifications to advise that due to one thing or another, they need additional personal details otherwise your paypal account will be limited.

The form you add your information to has an additional checkbox to have your identity confirmed for credit checking with Equifax, a US company with a poor record for protecing personal information:

Equifax hack overview

My overview of the paypal-equifax issue

Choice also wrote an article on a recent Equifax issue (but I can’t link because I’m new and limited to 2 links in the article).

In summary:

  • When you fill in your details, don’t click the Equifax button.
  • When you click Submit, the page reappears (as if you haven’t filled in the form correctly) but you can now safely logout.

You’ll receive an email from Paypal saying your ID has been recorded in their system and account restrictions have been removed.

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Contacting PayPal
#2

Hi @ljsinclair, welcome to the community.

These email are usually scams or criminals phishing for personal information. Paypal don’t usually send emails saying one’s account will be ‘limited’, but they can if they think your account has been used illegitimately~.

I hope that you didn’t click on any links in an email. If you did, it is likely you were directed to a phishing website which will look quite convincing as a Paypal login page.

I suggest ASAP to log into Paypal using the Paypal URL https://www.paypal.com/au/home/ and changing your password. If you clicked on an email link. it is possible that you have provided your password allowing these criminals to access your password protected Paypal account.

Edit: ~ The Paypal website in relation to determining whether such emails are legimate, indicate:

If you receive an email asking for documents, log in to your PayPal account. If it’s from us, you’ll see a notification that you can follow to upload the documents.

Never send proof of identity documents to anyone by email, and don’t click on links in emails to provide this information. Learn more about staying safe online

6 Likes
#3

As well as getting periodic credit reports into the future to check for identity theft based on the information you provided - eg making bogus accounts in your name.

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#4

A Q & A from PayPal regarding limiting accounts so it soumds like your communication may have been legitimate.

And a couple of warnings regarding PayPal scams.

Personally, I find PayPal fantastic from eBay purchases to dealing online with retailers like Dan Murphy.

No need to get my wallet for a credit card to pay, no need to give a party my credit card details, and transactions completed in seconds.

As for the bottom-feeding ggrubs at Equifax,

https://au.trustpilot.com/review/www.equifax.co.uk

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/privacy/equifax.html

2 Likes
#5

Never had that problem

#6

Hi all,
Thanks for the feedback
As @Fred123 mentioned, it’s a legit message from Paypal.
And as @phb pointed out, there’s a lot of scams. Interestingly, what prompted me to look at my account was a Paypal scam, although having worked in IT for 20+ years, I certainly didn’t click the link.
Anecdotally, I’m seeing a hell of a big rise in spam coming through over the past couple of weeks.
Signing off, and have a great weekend

L.

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