Phishing
[pronounced fishing]
Phishing is a scam usually conducted through email or a pop-up box on a web site. These emails and pop-ups have links that look like well-known legitimate businesses. They ask you to provide or confirm your personal, financial or password information so that the information you provide may be captured for their use or sold. Phishers will often trade or sell your information to others who will sell it also.
In a matter of a few hours, thousands of unscrupulous people could have your personal information. Beware of emails which ask you to supply any sensitive or personal data such as account numbers, Social Security numbers, or passwords.
Remember, links in these scams will often look legitimate as if they were sent to you by the official business. Because of this you may feel that you need to respond; however, by responding you may be providing your personal infomation to scammers which could be used to submit unauthorized charges to your credit card or withdrawals from your bank account, or even identity theft.
- If you get an email or pop-up message that asks for personal or financial information, do not reply or click on the link in the message.
Legitimate companies do not ask for this information via email.
- Don’t email personal or financial information.
Email is not a secure method of transmitting personal information.
- Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to determine whether there are any unauthorized charges.
- Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails you receive, regardless of who sent them.
If you receive spam that is phishing for information, forward it to spam@uce.gov.
For more information on phishing and Identity theft visit the links below:
Consumer
Federal Trade Commission
PhishingInfo
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