Scam: PayPal users targeted - WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports

A viewer recently tipped off our Call For Action team about a phishing scam.

The viewer received an email claiming to be from PayPal, saying his account had been accessed by an unauthorized third party and asking him to link to a web site to confirm some of his account information. He smelled a rat and alerted PayPal, as well as our Call For Action volunteer.

Mike Masino, an information security instructor at Madison College, says there have been phishing scams as long as there have been online accounts, and he says the scam emails can look very convincing.

The give away that it's likely a scam, he says, is the link.

"If there's a link you have to click to go someplace, it's a good chance it might be a scam," says Masino. "Best practice is, if you get something from Pay Pal or Ebay, or something like that, don't click the link. Just go out of you email client and go to PayPal or Ebay and log directly in. If they have a problem, there will be a message in your account telling you that."

PayPal, in a statement, gave us the same advice.

PayPal also asks any customers who receive a suspicious email to forward it to the company at spoof@paypal.com