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Scams and Your Personal and Financial Data By Vickie J. Scanlon Whether you work online or offline it's time to educate yourself of the new scams that have morphed itself from the phishing scams. For those who do not know what a phishing scam is let me enlighten you. And for those who have heard about a phishing scam, let me refresh your memory. A general definition of a phishing scam is the attempt by an individual to gather personal and/or financial information from you through an e-mail, phone call or even through the mail. There are more "ishing" scams that have morphed from the original phishing scam. All with one single purpose. To get financial information from you. E-mail phishing The individual (scammer) will send an official looking e-mail pretending to have come from Paypal, credit union, bank, or even a retail establishment with the hope of gaining personal information. (Note: for those looking for jobs you have to be careful about solicitations from scammers enticing you to try for a position -and all you have to do is provide them with some additional information.) Vishing Vishing is the use of your telephone. The victim will get an e-mail or voice mail message asking them to make a phone call. The victim will make the call which will trigger a voice response system asking the user for their card number or other personal or financial information. Smishing Smishing is a mobile phone scam. The mobile phone user will receive a text message with the purpose of getting the user to click on a link. Phishing-through the mail The phishing through the snail mail- (surprising as it may seem-since it does cost money to send a letter) is where the scammer sends an individual a letter requesting that they respond to the letter by calling a specific phone number- for their own protection. My advice, if it is an institution that you do business with-contact them to verify-before you decide to give that "specific phone number" a call. How to protect yourself 1. Do not click on the link they provide. 2. If you want to check the link. Open up a session of the Internet and put in your stored link - NOT THE LINK provided within the email. And verify the information. 3. Contact the company that you are doing business with to make them aware of what is going on - and/or to verify that the email or letter was truly sent by the company. If it was not, then this warning will allow them to notify other people that they do business with, with what is happening. 4. If you do any business online - use security software 5. Make sure the website shows SSI security- (https//) 6. Make sure your browser is up-to-date and all security patches are current. To conclude: use caution when giving out your personal information-online or offline. About the Author: Vickie J Scanlon Visit her site at: My Affiliate Place for accounting software, security utilities, report your scams, articles on affiliate marketing, how to info for affiliate marketing/internet marketing, computer deals for business and more. |
