PayPal is one of the most popular and secure services which you can use to shop and sell online, and to send and receive money. Since financial transactions are involved, it is very important to learn and know how to set up an account and login to PayPal in a safe and secure manner. This article will try to give you a few security tips on how to use PayPal in a safe and secure manner.
PayPal Sign Up
Visit https://www.paypal.com and under the section, Open a PayPal Account, click on Sign Up. Next select the type of account you’d like to create. Most of us would like to open up a Personal account which will allow us to shop online free and send and receive money free.
You will have to furnish your details like your email ID, name, date of birth, nationality, PAN/Tax number if required, address, mobile number and credit/debit card details. Do make sure that you create a strong password for your PayPal account and use it.
Once you have clicked on the confirmation mail that you receive and can login to your PayPal account, head over to your Profile settings. Here if you wish, you should add more email ID’s. You can add up to 7 email IDs. These alternative IDs along with your mobile number come in use if you need to reclaim your PayPal account.
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You should initiate steps to get your PayPal account verified by passing some security checks. This opens up some more features to your account.
PayPal login
Here are a few precautions you must take while operating your PayPal account.
1. Secure your devices, operating system and software
Make sure that your operating system and your anti-virus software is always up-to-date. It is very important to use a strong and secure browser. I personally prefer to use Internet Explorer when logging into any sensitive accounts – but feel free to use the one which you think is most secure. Also always ensure that your web browser is fully updated to its latest version. A software is seldom perfect and may have holes or bugs, which could be exploited by Hackers.
2. Always use a strong password
Hackers have computer programs that carry out password guessing attacks on websites. The programs select a user name and then try to log in using common passwords. They keep trying to log in with different passwords until the website blocks them. You may have seen that many websites block you after three failed logins. But the program keeps trying after a period of time again and again. Simple passwords are easy to crack; that is why you must have strong passwords. You might want to check if your present password is strong enough.
3. Don’t click on any mail links – stay protected against identity theft.
A spoofed mail or web page can look just like the real thing. Fraudsters not only spoof web pages, but emails too. A spoofed email is very deceptive. It can actually look just like the real thing, although many of them have a strange sender address. So look carefully at the address, either the webpage or the sender of an email, and you’ll catch many of the scams.
PayPal will never ask you in an email.
- Your full name
- Email addresses
- Username and Passwords
- Credit and debit card numbers
- Bank account numbers
There are some very common scams where fraudsters use spoofed emails. Maybe you have received an email with a subject: Your account is about to be suspended. If you suspect any email to be a fraud, forward the entire mail to: [email protected]
Unless you are 100% sure, its best not to respond to such email or phone calls asking for your account information. You can always directly visit PayPal.com. If there is indeed something important which PayPal wants to convey to you, you will see a notification to this effect.
4. Add an extra level of security using the PayPal Security Key
If you wish, you can add an extra layer of security to your PayPal account. While PayPal protects your account with one of the highest levels of online security available, you can add even more protection with it. The PayPal Security Key is a small electronic device that generates a unique security code for your account every 30 seconds.
You can use that code to access your account – and to help prevent people you don’t know from doing the same. It’s like a combination lock for your account, except that the combination always changes and costs $5 one-time.
5. Security Tool recommended by PayPal
PayPal has incorporated industry-standard email authentication technology to help better protect its users from fraudulent emails. You can download and install the free Iconix software recommended by PayPal, on your computer.
When you get an email from PayPal, you’ll see a Truemark icon – a gold lock with a checkmark – in the sender column. This simple visual indicator says the email is authentic.
Read: How to create a personal URL for PayPal payments.
PayPal login problems
If you find that you are unable to login to your PayPal account, check if you are using your primary email address and the correct password to log in. If you have forgotten your credentials, you can click on the Problems with login link on its home page.
Here provide the required information, whether you have forgotten your password, email address or both. If you have forgotten your login email ID, you can enter up to three email addresses you may have used to create your PayPal account. PayPal will check to find a match and then mail your fresh credentials.
Want options? Take a look at these PayPal alternatives.
If you have any more tips to offer, please do share them in the comments, for the benefit of others.
Hotmail Sign In, Yahoo Login, Facebook Sign In, Twitter Sign In help, Gmail Sign In, Skype Login, LinkedIn login tips, Google Plus Login Tips, may also interest some of you.
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