Beware of Phishers and Their Tricks

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I have an early Hotmail account, I got it back when I was in school.  I was lucky to get an account that had first letter of my fist name, and my entire last name ex.) [email protected]

I thought it was pretty cool at the time, but now I get mail for Dan, Dana, David etc…  So I get about 100 emails of junk a day.

 

No Phishing allowed!

No Phishing allowed!

 

What I really hate about my account is all the Phishers that try to scam me. Phishers are con artists that send you what looks like a link to a legitimate business (Ebay), but instead routes you to a scam site (that even looks like Ebay, but isn’t).

Phishing is a technique that the bad guys use to try to steal your credit card numbers.  Often time, older people who aren’t familiar with these techniques fall prey to such underhanded methods.  But other people fall for it too.  I have a relative (a recent graduate from a prestigious college) tell me that one day he wasn’t paying attention and click on an Ebay link in his email and logged in.  Realizing what he did, he instantly closed the existing browser and opening a new one, next he logging into Ebay and changed his password (luckily, he didn’t re-enter his credit info when they asked).  Next he call Ebay’s customer support just for the extra feeling of security.

So what do you do when you get an email for your bank or Ebay informing you a problem has occurred or you messed up and need to log in to fix this problem, etc…

  • Delete the email in your inbox.
  • Close all browser windows you have open, including your email account to (if it’s a browser type email client like Hotmail, Gmail, yahoo, etc)
  • Open a new internet explorer (or foxfire or safari) and Google the business that supposedly emailed you.
  • On the site search for the customer support phone number, and call it immediately.
  • If you mistakenly provided a credit card number, call your credit card company and have them issue you a new card with a number immediately.
  • If you get an email stating that you’re entitled to, won, inherited, or ect. a multimillionaire sum…   9.9999 times out of 10 don’t believe it. delete these emails too

I know people who when they log onto any web site on the web, they enter their account and then a bogus password just to make sure that the site is legitimate.  If the site lets you log on, even though you provided a bogus password, then it a Phishing site, close your browser!!!

Phishing is a horrible way to lose money.  Don’t fall for it!!!

2 thoughts on “Beware of Phishers and Their Tricks”

  1. Huh, interesting idea about using a bogus password as a safety check, I wouldn’t have thought of that. I haven’t gotten too many phishing offers (gmail is good at eating spam) but when I have I’ve forwarded them to the legitimate company in case they weren’t aware.

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