That my friend, is a great story!

Fresh from my inbox (I have removed the links, there is zero probability that I will follow them):

A) Do you have a PayPal account?
B) If so, I would sign into it directly to see if you actually made that payment.

If you did, then you best take the appropriate actions and change your PP password and Q&A. If you did not, still change your PP password and Q&A.

KOT

This is fake. Real PayPal notices have a different format. Picking through the message headers indicates that it is fake. It's real purpose is attempting to drive me to a site.

Edit: I forgot to mention that this "notice" showed up in a business email box. Unfortunately for spammer, the business does not have a PayPal account.

I initially open all emails in text mode because spammers often use web beacons in the body that will log the viewing. As far as spammers are concerned, nothing delivered to this mailbox is ever opened.

damn, i was expecting to hear a horror story about the schmuck from north dakota.

Whenever i get an important sounding email i just delete it and go log in to my actual account and see if there are any messages. Just about every account i have has a message system of some sort.

So many people click on the links and at the very least validate that it's a real account and at most are taken to a site that looks legit.
Then they 'try to login' thus providing their username and password and in some cases even security question.
With all that info, crooks go into accounts and clean the victim's accounts.
Like others said, don't click on links -- open a browser and type (not copy/paste) the URL.

I get important emails from Wells Fargo, McMaster-Carr, Bank of America, and all sorts of other companies. The thing is, I don't have a B of A account, which simply PROVES that bogus emails are going out. Just like Mac, I simply don't believe "important sounding emails" are real. Yup, I dump out of them and go directly to the company's website.

Except Bank of America.

EDIT:

Here's one that came in just now. Big Red Letters tell me:
Your 2018 Transunion Equifax and Experian Credit Scores!
Click_HERE!!

Right. NFW.

I get the Bank of America emails too, and I also don't have an account with them. I also....aw crap, I gotta go. I just found out the IRS has the local cops coming to arrest me due to a large balance I owe that I didn't know about.

The ones I get go something like this:

We are one of the world's biggest management consulting firms and we have a Fortune 500 client who is looking to get into the IoT space. So-and-so highly recommended you as a valuable resource. I would love to chat with you to get some insights about the installation channel. Would you have 30 minutes to spare so I can milk you for 25 years worth of your knowledge, and then I can put it in a report and charge my clients $250,000 for it?

Nice. It must feel good to be in such demand, Julie.

Pretty sure they try everyone with "IoT" in their linkedin profile. I just send them to the real expert ... Fred at Capitol.

Just what Fred wanted to be when he grew up IoT expert.....

She did have a pocket. You just coudn't help use it....

We just sent emailed a client a contract and an invoice. 10 minutes later he replies with "I have reviewed your contract, please see my notes attached and wire instructions to receive payment".

Now normally I can sniff this stink out miles away but this one was in context based on our communication so at first I didn't think anything of it. I clicked the link and it asked me to log into my gmail account. Yeah...no! and the word "wire" was another red flag. Asked the client and he didn't send it. Google had actually flagged it and I missed that.

Fairly standard email scam, this one just stick me because it was so in context.