Protect your Paypal Debt Card with GMail Filters

I was just reading this thread about emailing an Adsense balance to your phone via SMS and it donned on me, I've been having my Paypal debt card emails forwarded to my phone for ages now.

Basically, any time my Paypal Debt card is used, Paypal sends me an email about it with details about the transaction. Since my mobile service provider will forward emails sent to 10-digit-number@my-provider.net to my phone as an SMS text message, I can use GMails filters to have those emails forwarded to my phone.

This is is awesome thing to have. More times than not I will get the message before I'm even done speaking with the person I'm dealing with. I've been out to eat and received the message before the waiter comes back with my card. I've been at the grocery store and received the message before my groceries were bagged. If someone ever skims my card and uses the number, or I lose my wallet and don't realize it, I'll know almost immediately if someone tries to use my card/number. The faster I know and call Paypal, the less likely I am to get stuck with fraudulent charges.

I'm sure other email services have similar functionality, but I'm going to stick with GMail because I use it.

With the GMail web browser interface open, there will be a "settings" link towards the top-right. Within those settings there is a "Filters" tab. If I click the "Create a new filter" link, I'm presented with a form like the one attached in this image.



I enter "service@paypal.com" in the "from" field, then click "Next Step", which brings me to the following screen, which I fill out like so.



After that I just click the "Create Filter" button and my phone will start getting copies of the emails from then on.

Here's a list of common SMS/Email Domains for U.S. Cellular Providers. For instance for AT&T the domain is "10-digit-phone-number@mobile.att.net" where "10-digit-phone-number" is your phone number and area code.

This probably goes without saying, but it's a really good idea to test out your address with some dummy messages from your PC before setting up the filter. Also, this is basically going to work like getting text messages sent to your phone. If you get charged for incoming text messages, you might want to take that into consideration.

That is a cool thing. Thanks for pointing that out. I would probably start using PayPal card from now on, and have a little layer of protection against scammers/identity thieves/card thieves.

I just need to look up my rights and my federal protection on the web use of the on-line PayPal debit card.

I know that I can start a transaction within 3 days (I'm pretty sure it's 3 days) of the date when a purchase has being made with a credit card... I'm pretty sure debit cards don't have that protection. I'm just wondering if PayPal could be considered an exception?