Why am I receiving emails or texts from PayPal when I don’t have an account?

You may receive emails from us because someone registered a PayPal account with your email. They may have mistakenly typed the email address during sign-up or intentionally used an email address that wasn’t theirs.

A domain provider like Gmail or Hotmail may have also recycled your email address. If you have an email account and don’t use it for a while, the domain provider can reissue it to the public for use by someone else.

If you receive a message and are unsure it’s really from PayPal, always remember to check for the red flags shown in this video.

If you don't have a PayPal account but are receiving PayPal emails you can email us at UnsolicitedEmail@paypal.com.

You will need to:

• Email us using the email address that you're receiving PayPal emails
• Include a statement acknowledging you do not have a PayPal account and would like your email removed from the PayPal system

We can't reply to any general account questions or inquiries via the UnsolicitedEmail@paypal.com address.

If you do not have a PayPal account but you receive an SMS suggesting that you've attempted to log in, you can ignore these messages. It's most likely they are phishing attempts sent to random phone numbers.

If you do have a PayPal account and you're receiving these messages about log in attempts, at times you're not trying to log in, this suggests that someone has your password.

When you have Two-Factor Authentication set up on your account and any log in is attempted, we'll send you an SMS to confirm that it's you logging in. The SMS will come from one of our numbers, for example, 729725 or 72975.

This Two-Factor Authentication step must be completed before your account can be accessed. So, if you receive this SMS when you're not attempting to log in, we recommend that you log in to your PayPal account and change your password immediately.