PayPal warning - what alternative do you use?

[jhockin]

It seems that many members are accustomed to using PayPal, for buying and/or selling kilt related items, and I have been thinking of selling some kilts, and related items, in the near term. However, it seems that PayPal has become a very attractive target for hackers, and I don’t wish to have my accounts hacked. What better, safer, more secure alternatives do members use/ recommend?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywi...ngoing-attack/

[bookish]

It seems that many members are accustomed to using PayPal, for buying and/or selling kilt related items, and I have been thinking of selling some kilts, and related items, in the near term. However, it seems that PayPal has become a very attractive target for hackers, and I don’t wish to have my accounts hacked. What better, safer, more secure alternatives do members use/ recommend?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywi...ngoing-attack/

As my nieces and nephews know all to well, I am full of unsolicited advice. So, take the following with as much weight as you feel it warrants:

I generally think phishing is avoidable by simply not clicking links from emails or responding to emails that are designed to create a sense of urgency. For example, if I receive an email from an online service, I do my best to exercise the discipline of going to that service's URL manually in the browser. It helps that I use a password management system as well. A phishing scam isn't really hacking or cracking, but a socially-engineered email meant to scare you or create a sense of urgency so that you skip the step of going to the website of the supposed service. What a bad actor wants is to direct you through a link in their email to a dummy webpage so that they can steal your information, or, they want you to respond to the email. In the latter case, someone will respond to your email response and try to convince you to send them money or information that will help them gain access to your online accounts.

I don't think switching payment services every time there is an issue is helpful, unless you don't wish to support that company anymore. I would advise anyone to not react immediately to emails that try to create a sense of urgency. I also advise not to use mobile email for responding to emails that have a sense of urgency about them. I find it quite difficult to look at the sender's email address on mobile, which is the first step to making sure that an email is not part of a scam. The second step would be to read the email copy and assess whether or not it is well written, or if the email is asking me to follow a link or connect to an individual personally outside of the email chain. In the browser, I can right click on links and copy the link address, and paste the address into a text document to see if there is anything odd about the way that the web address is formed. If the email text does not seem grammatically odd, the email address looks legitimate, and the links look well-formed, I would still use my browser bookmarks to navigate to the website, or type the web address.

Also, change your passwords regularly, never use the same password twice. Online safety is never guaranteed, but you can save yourself a lot of heartache and trouble by not giving in to a sense of urgency.