How to correctly post a payment proof

I must admit that I've been very deeply involved into GPT sites lately, trying them, studying them, exploring them and, of course gaining some money from them. And I saw a lot of payment proofs posted of dedicated forums and personal blogs.

Posting payment proofs is very normal considering the fact that many people, before they sign up, want and need to be sure what they get into, and if they loose their time for nothing or they do get something from those PTC or GPT sites.

But while publishing a screenshot from your Paypal account can be a good way convince your close friends or strangers from the large public to join that GPT site and thus become your refs, this can be also a risky thing if you post too much information. A bad guy could use the sensible information to do you harm.

This were my thoughts while I was exploring those sites. My gut and the logic were telling me that there should be a way to prevent any security problem without altering the message.

So I did some digging and I have found out that, for security reasons, any payment proof should not show the following data:

- Transaction ID
- Your Paypal email (or the email you use with you payment processor)
- Any other specific code (is not Paypal's case, but it can be related to other payment processors)

As an example, I give bellow a screenshot with my first payment received from DonkeyMails.com. It is a screenshot from my Paypal account.

When posting a payment proof, make sure that you hide the transaction ID and your email address

In order to obtain a payment proof, just log into your Paypal account, use a printscreen tool (or press PrtSc key) and then edit it with an image editor. In Zorin OS, I use Screenshot app and Gimp.

Additionally, for a plus of credibility, you can add a screenshot from your email account (the one you use it in connection with Paypal, to receive your money). Again, you have to make sure you erase all the sensible data.

When posting a capture from your Paypal email, erase your transaction ID

In short, I think the rule would sound like this: when you are not sure if strange eyes should see that information, it's better to be cautious and erase it.