What is Phishing?

You have probably heard on the news about e-mail phishing. But if you don't know exactly what it is, it is hard to protect yourself and your personal information against it.

Phishing refers to a scam where someone will represent themselves as being from a particular company, and try to trick you into submitting your personal information. However, the company they are falsely representing is not the one soliciting the information.

What companies are the most common ones to have scammers falsely represent them? EBay is one of the biggest, followed closely by PayPal. US banks are another popular target.

If you receive an e-mail on eBay, PayPal or a financial institution, it asks you to enter your username and password or to update billing or banking information, always be wary. The simplest thing to do is to go to the site yourself by typing and the URL into the address bar of your Web browser.

If you click the link contained in the email, chances are that page you see will be absolutely identical to the real thing. Except it isn't the real thing, that web pages hosted by a scammer who is trying to get your personal information.

If you ever think you may have fallen victim to this scam, it is imperative you contact the company or banking institution immediately. Sometimes it can only take a minute before that scammer has complete access to all your information in the company. So never wait until morning, phone them immediately.

You should also immediately log into your account and change the password, even if you are waiting on hold with the company. That way if you have given the scammer your login information, it will no longer be valid as soon as you've changed that password.

About Us | Contact Us | Submission Guidelines |Privacy policy
Copyright 2001-2012