"Your PayPal account will be closed in 90 days." Legit email from PayPal? Or scam/phish?

External question — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: user190449 Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/170005 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. I got an email from [email removed] with the title "Your PayPal account will be closed" and the following text: Hello, [My Full Name] Your PayPal account will be closed in 90 days. We noticed that you haven’t logged into your PayPal account in over 3 years. As a security and compliance measure, we have placed a restriction on your account and we will close it in 90 days. You will no longer be able to transact on this account but can log in to see your transaction history until the account is closed. The closure of your PayPal account will only affect the account linked to the email address you are receiving this communication at. There is then a big button with this text: Create a new account The link on the above button is: https://www.paypal.com/us/signup/?v=1&utm_source=unp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RT004167&utm_unptid=69370817-aab6-11f1-99cb-55e5a5280095&ppid=RT004167&cnac=US&rsta=en_US%28en-US%29&cust=FMZUM64MUBA88&unptid=69370817-aab6-11f1-99cb-55e5a5280095&calc=1e053a382d1ea&unp_tpcid=da_rt004167_pre_closure&page=main%3Aemail%3ART004167&pgrp=main%3Aemail&e=cl&mchn=em&s=ci&mail=sys&appVersion=1.439.0&tenant_name=PayPal&xt=185429%2C182450%2C185427%2C175543%2C104038%2C183982%2C184726%2C180509&xe=115153%2C114833%2C115152%2C114002%2C101255%2C114941%2C115052%2C114543&link_ref=us_signup Is the above a scam or phishing attempt? Or is it a legit email from PayPal? My thoughts It's very strange that PayPal would just close my account without giving me any opportunity to log in and keep it active. Instead, they give me only an option to "Create a new account". I've never seen any half-decent company do this. (Of course, many would argue PayPal isn't a half-decent company.) On the other hand, The "[email removed]" email address seems legit. The link on the button seems legit. Note: I've emailed both [email removed] and [email removed]. (I'll update this post if I get any response.) Other discussions of this email (or variants) Many say this is a scam/phish (only a small minority say it's legit): Facebook post "🚨SCAM ALERT - PAYPAL EMAIL 🚨" by "Middlesbrough Trading Standards" ( 2026-09-10 ) Norfolk County Council (somewhat official looking local UK government webpage), "Scam Alert - Emails claiming to be from PayPal - 9 September 2026" ( 2026-09-09 ) "paypal message saying my account going to be deleted USA" (Reddit Scams forum, 2026-09-06 ) "'Your PayPal account will be closed in 90 days'" (Reddit PayPal forum, 2026-09-03 ) "'We're initiating the closure of your paypal account' scam or real?" (Reddit PayPal forum, 2021 ) Screenshot of the email

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: mhoran_psprep Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/170006 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. If you don't have an account then this us a scam. If you use it all the time then this is a scam. If you do have an account but seldom use it then decide if you want to keep it. Either way ignore the link, login the normal way using a simple url and either delete the account or keep it alive. There are always PayPal scam emails, but not all PayPal emails are scams. The answer is always be careful. Don't click an unexpected inks without investigating.

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: keshlam Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/170007 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. General advice, if in any doubt: On almost all modern systems, you can check by logging onto the system as you normally do and looking to see if the same warning appears there in your inbox, messages, notifications, or whatever that system calls the mailbox for messages to the user. If there is no such, contact the company directly, again using the standard login procedure or website or phone numbers or other customer support rather than clicking on the link in the email.