How can you tell?

[Jimbo]

I had this email waiting for me when I got to work today. The only time I use my PayPal account is for S-B raffles and transactions, which I have not made any in months. Now I get the email below and I'm hesitant to respond because I'm not sure if it's legit or someone trying to get my credit card info and rip me off. Does anyone know how to tell if this is on the level or not? I'm skeptical that it says the need to know my credit card/band account information.
Here's the email:
Dear PayPal Member,

Our comprehensive fraud-prevention program is one of the key reasons PayPal is a safe way to pay online. We believe that innovation and careful analysis is the way to beat fraud. That's why PayPal has developed industry-leading models to review every transaction, and help detect suspicious activity.

Our Fraud Investigation Team recently detected suspicious activity in your account. In order to continue to operate the PayPal service and to reduce the risk of fraud, PayPal Corp. ("PayPal" or "we") must ask you to provide us information about yourself and your credit card and/or bank account.

To do so please follow the link below.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure meant to help you and protect your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
PayPal Fraud Investigation Department

PayPal Email ID PP562

[RIJIMMY]

Jimbo, I believe on the Paypal site it says that they will NEVER send a message saying "dear payal member" or whatever, they will always use your name. Also, you can look at where the link brings you, I gurantee it wont be paypal.com
This is definitley fraud. You should go to the paypal site and report it.

[The Dad Fisherman]

If they are ASKING for personal information via E-Mail....treat it as a scam. No respecting E-Commerce site does that.

If they are telling you to call them to discuss, verify the phone # against there web site and it should be OK

[Swimmer]

Jimbo dont even think about it, we'll send someone over to spank you.

[chris L]

forward it to paypal at spoof@paypal.com
.

[Raven]

are you using the firefox browser?
because if you are ...you can be using the ip address plugin tool
that shows you the IP address for every site you connect to....

paypals ip addys are these..............
216.113.188.34
216.113.188.35
216.113.188.64
216.113.188.65

anything else is bogus.....

thats how

[FormerUser]

Its a fake Jimbo.

There's only one way you should ever log into Paypal:
http://www.paypal.com/

EXACTLY as you see it here.NEVER respond to emails.

[CAL]

I got one like that a week or two ago, and I've never even had a paypal account.

[jklett]

I got an email that looked just like a payment confirmation from paypal. There was a link to "dispute transaction". I called paypal and they told me that their emails will never have links in them. If it has a link, it isn't from paypal.