Phishing scams can hurt you

A fairly modern tool utilized by identity theft hackers is the concept of "phishing" where a seemingly legitimate e-mail message tries to get someone to submit personal information by way of the World Wide Web. E-mail financial crimes cost people billions of dollars each and every year in financial losses. People who surf the World Wide Web regularly ought to be watchful to avoid becoming victims of Internet opportunists who seek to engage in identity theft.

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E-mail messages that appear to be from financial organizations, Internet store Amazon or auction site Ebay show up in electronic mail inboxes every day. Questionable e-mail messages regularly contain a link which the recipient can click to fix the issue with their account. E-mail messages often warn the recipient that some security breakdown has taken place with his or her account, and that action must be taken by the recipient to repair the issue. There's only one problem with that - nothing contained in the message is true.

Hackers on the World Wide Web, determined to access vital personal information that can be exploited, are sending out electronic mail messages by the millions each and every day, targeting clients of recognizable financial companies with genuine-looking inquiries. Unrequested messages from lenders or creditors are an instance of "phishing", a popular modern tool among credit theft thieves. A good number of of these notices suggest bad outcomes for any individual who ignores them, cancelation of the account being the most common. How can a consumer who is genuinely concerned about the security of his or her financial information tell a real message from a fake one? The messages, at least at first glance, frequently seem to be real.
 

Following are some clues to whether a message is a phishing expedition or an official one.

One clue that indicates a fraudulent message will appear in the greeting. "Dear customer" would be a weird greeting for a real customer of a company to receive in an electronic mail message. If you conduct business with a business, they likely know your name, and they would use your name in the greeting. Amazon, eBay, PayPal, or any other financial institution would more than likely address by name, not by "Dear customer."

Check the links themselves in the e-mail message. Often in phishing messages, what the link says and the link's destination are two different things. Look out for links that appear to lead somewhere other than where they really go. The link may say "www.ebay.com" but the actual address may be a sequence of digits, such as "235.34.56.22" or a similar Uniform Resource Locator, or URL to the real one. When you move your mouse over a link in an e-mail message, many, if not most e-mail programs will show you the URL or Web address to which the link points.

Watch out for misspelled words. More often than not the notices, which look OK on first examination, are full of hysterically misspelled expressions and faulty grammar. A few of these criminals reside in foreign countries, where English is not the typical language.

Contact companies with whom you conduct business by going to their Web site, or call them on the phone if you have any questions. Don't respond to electronic mail messages that may or may not have come from the real business. The answer to avoiding being caught in a phishing crime is not to respond to these kinds of notices. It's better to be safe than sorry, and it pays to be cautious. If you are not, then you might become the latest victim of a financial crime. When you do business with a bank, Internet payment business, credit card lender or eBay, and you want to contact them, do so on your own.