Beware of fake PayPal “Survey Program” offers

PayPal users based in the UK are being targeted with a spoofed PayPal email offering a reward for participating in a “new survey program,” warns Malwarebytes.

“The survey will take 5 minutes and for your effort and understanding PayPal will select most of the customers that takes this survey and reward them with £25.00 GBP. It would be helpful if you fill it out right now. If that is not possible, please do it soon,” says the email.

“To start completing the Survey please download the attachement form and follow the steps to open a secure browser window. Your PayPal BONUS CODE is PP2553455; Please copy/paste the code and write the code in the survey file in order to get your £25.00 GBP prize.”

The attached online_form.zip file contains a .htm page with an online form to be filled in. There are a few questions to be answered regarding the quality of the PayPal service, and then the victims are urged to share their name, address, date of birth, and complete payment card information.

“For security reasons we recommend that you close your browser after you have finished the credit process,” it says below the form. “Your account will be credited within the next 3 business days.”

Unfortunately for those who fall for this trick, every claim in this email is untrue, and they will likely be hit with unauthorized card charges and/or identity theft attempts.

PayPal is one of the most exploited brands by phishers because of its payment-processing nature. Users are advised to be extremely careful whenever reviewing email apparently sent by the service.