Well, the simple answer to these questions is that Paypal are the biggest and the best in online eCommerce, and as far as I know they are completely trustworthy. For the same reason though, they are constantly being targetted by scammers worldwide, who will email you, pretending to be representatives of Paypal.

I get one to two Paypal scam emails per day, so if you haven't received any yet, you've been lucky. You can't avoid getting them. The trick is to recognise them as you receive them, and consign them without hesitation to the virtual dustbin.

Let me give you a simple four-point checklist by which you can pick the scam emails, and then I'm going to show you a video where I actually open a few scam emails to illustrate the same points.

Here's Father Dave's checklist:

Does the email come from Paypal.com? If so, in my case, it's a scam email. I'm in Australia, so if I get a genuine communication from Paypal it will be from Paypal.com.au. If you're in Brittain it will be from Paypal.com.uk, etc. This is no help if you're based in the US but you get the idea.

The subject lines have a familiar ring. Admittedly, this assumes that you've seen Paypal scam emails before, but believe me, once you've seen a dozen, you've seen them all! 'Flagged Account' is a favourite subject line. 'Urgent Security Measures' is another. 'A new email has been added to your account' is a third. After a while, you can pick them.

The email does not address you by name. Even if the first two criteria aren't much help to you, this is an absolutely sure-fire indicator. When Paypal write to you they always address you by name. When scammers write to you they don't use your name because they don't know it. But they want to know it, or more particualrly your account details.

The link does not take you to Paypal.com. This is of course the crucial difference.

If you follow the link in the scam email, you'll be taken to a site that has been made up to look like the Paypal site, but is entirely designed to prize your account details from you! Sometimes they use html code to create a linking text in the email that contains a genuine Paypal URL! This is very sneaky! You can always check the real URL in the status bar

(if you're not sure what I'm talking about here, see the video).

The bottom line is that, if you think you have received an email from the real Paypal, go to your account independantly of the possible-scam email and see if there are any messages attached to your account. The real Paypal will do this.

If, after finding no notices attached to your account, you still feel it might be a genuine email, contact Paypal yourself! You email them. They'll tell you if the email was genuine.