PayPal Red Alert: What The Latest Warning Means and What You Should Know

If you recently got an alarming notice from PayPal, you're not alone. A PayPal red alert has been issued due to the popular service seeing a large influx of scam attempts since the beginning of 2025. While the sounding of the alarm isn’t comforting news to flash onto your screen or into your inbox, there are things you should know — and things you can do — to make sure you don’t become the next victim.

Let’s take a look!

What is a PayPal Red Alert?

The red alert is simply a warning from security experts due to a noticeable increase in scam activity and cyber attacks involving PayPal. The important thing to know, however, is what exactly these scams look like and what you can do to keep yourself safe.

The Newest PayPal Email Scam

By now, we should all be familiar with phishing scams. Scammers send you a link pretending to be from a company you’re already familiar with, tricking you into clicking it, which can open the door for scammers to steal your credit card information and/or other private details. The problem this time is that the scam links aren’t coming from spoofed emails pretending to be PayPal — they’re actually coming from PayPal itself.

Yes, you read that right. Some scammers have found a way to send phishing links that arrive in your inbox from the official PayPal email address. This means some of the classic red flags of phishing scams — close but slightly misspelled or altered email addresses, for example — might not be present to save you from a PayPal scam.

However, despite coming from PayPal's actual email address, the contents of these emails are still the classic phishing materials — a notice that you’ve recently purchased a high-ticket item, a claim that there’s something wrong with your account, etc. While the email address might not be spoofed, the website linked to in these emails absolutely is. Everything that happens after clicking the link (or calling the number) in the email goes straight to the scammers.

How to Stay Safe

So, what do you do? If you get an odd or urgent email from PayPal containing a link, don’t click it. Instead, navigate to the PayPal website on your own, and log in or contact verified support to see if the issue is real or not.

Best PayPal Security Practices 

While the new scam is alarming, it’s just one of many that have caused PayPal to put its users on high alert. Before getting into some of the other common PayPal scams you need to watch out for, let’s take a second to make sure your account is locked up tight and safe from pesky scammers. Here are our top tips.

• Don’t click on links: We’ll type it,  yell it, repeat it, do whatever we need to so the people know: Do. Not. Click. On. Links. If you get an email or text message that feels urgent, go directly to PayPal to check on your account and any potential transactions or alerts.
• Use unique and complex passwords: Long gone are the days when you could get away with having your password be something like “password123.” Your password needs to be long (12 or more characters), have some numbers and symbols mixed in, and — this is the hardest part —  not be the same password for every account.
• Use a password manager: Password managers can be great for two reasons: 1) They make it so you can set strong passwords without having to necessarily memorize every single one; and 2) If your username and password don’t autofill on a website you have saved, it’s a huge red flag that you’ve somehow ended up on a spoofed website.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA): Whether you have a code sent to you via email or text, or you use a designated authenticator app, enabling 2FA is another wall that can stop scammers from accessing your account and stealing your private and financial information.
• Biometric authentication: These days, our phones serve as our primary device for all sorts of apps and websites. If this is the case for you, enabling biometric security features means that unless scammers can somehow steal your fingerprints or actual face, they’ll have no way to access your account.
• Change your password: If you get an alert, or just notice something seems funky/off with your account, immediately access your account (directly from the PayPal website, not any links!), log out of all devices, and then change your password. If you’re worried your financial information was compromised, contact your bank/financial institution to make sure everything is locked down.
• Be cautious on public Wi-Fi: Being out and about and having your phone show an endlessly spinning wheel feels like some form of modern torture, but think twice before you join publicly available WiFi. These networks can be a backdoor that scammers can use to ride your coattails into your accounts, so, if you plan on doing anything that involves accessing financial information or other private info, like logging into/using PayPal, it’s best to not to do that on Wi-Fi (and that’s a direct tip from PayPal security!).

Common PayPal Scams 

Knowing the latest scam to hit the scene is a good start to staying safe, but scammers like to play numbers games, meaning they have no shortage of different tactics they try to steal from their victims. Here are some other common PayPal scams to be on the lookout for.

PayPal Email Phishing Scam 

While the scam we just covered is a fancy new phishing scam that has managed to hijack the official PayPal email, more rudimentary email phishing scams still exist. Just to quickly re-cover our bases, watch out for any emails you receive claiming to be from PayPal and involving some sort of messaging that calls for immediate action. 

PayPal Text Scam 

This is pretty much the exact same thing as email phishing, but via text message. If you get a text that’s supposedly from PayPal — often involving a purchase you didn’t make — ignore the text and go straight to your account on your browser to view any transactions. If there’s nothing there, you’re in the clear.

PayPal Invoice Scam

One particularly effective PayPal scam is the fake invoice scam. This scam works by scammers sending realistic-looking invoices for products or services, which can actually trick people if the invoice happens to come from a vendor they often use. Recently, a Docusign trick to bypass email security filters and protections has caused this scam to see a surge — so always triple-check those invoices before you pay them.

PayPal Overpayment Scam 

If you run a small business and do a lot of PayPal transactions, you might have had an unfortunate run-in with an overpayment scam. With overpayment scams, scammers will send more money than what was invoiced, and then ask you to wire them back the difference. They then cancel the initial payment and disappear with whatever you sent them.

PayPal Shipping Scam 

Another scam targeting small businesses, scammers will purposefully provide incorrect shipping details, reroute the package through the mail service, and then claim that they never received the item. Also, if they are requesting you use a prepaid shipping label provided by them, it’s usually a red flag that some type of scam is underway.

PayPal Prize Winnings Scam 

If you’ve heard of the Publishers Clearing House scam, then this won’t be new to you. Scammers will contact you claiming that you’ve won a prize and will say that they need to send a little money to confirm your identity or cover shipping. The real surprise is that you haven’t actually won anything, but you have just sent scammers some money.

Beat the Scammers

Unfortunately, whether it be on PayPal or somewhere else, scammers have seized the tools of our increasingly online world to grow their criminal operations. Knowing their tricks is a good way to avoid becoming a victim, but there are also some other tools that can help you confirm if people are who they say they are. With PeopleWin, you can quickly search any name, email, phone number, or address, and instantly get reports about who the people you’re interacting with. So, remember these tips, stay vigilant, and don’t let the scammers win.

Cyrus Grant is a writer from Southern California with a background in law and dispute resolution. When he isn’t writing, he can be found deep-diving into the latest technology trends or simply spending time at the beach.