Phishing or The Account Maintenance Scam

This is the big one, and it works over the phone or through e-mail. Someone claiming to be from a company you have an account with—your bank, online retailer, or Internet provider, for instance—contacts you to “confirm” your account information, i.e., all the information an identity thief can use. Don’t. If it’s a phone call, double-check that the caller is legit by hanging up and calling them back using a reliable number. (Get, the number yourself from the phone book or a billing statement.)

If the account maintenance request comes in an e-mail, it’s called phishing, and things get even trickier. You’ll be asked to click on a link within the e-mail, which will take you to a site that looks exactly like the company’s real site. Don’t be fooled! There you’ll find a form, and if you fill it out, an identity thief gets all your info.

So how can you tell if an e-mail like this is a scam? Well, remember that link in the e-mail? It was probably your Internet provider’s real address, but here’s the diabolical truth: a link can say one thing and take you somewhere else entirely! Even the address bar on your browser can fool you. Thieves buy domain names that are almost exactly identical to the actual site names: www.yourbank.net becomes www.yourbank.com or www.yourbankonline.net. Again, you need to verify this through a separate source. Call the company directly, or type the address you know is theirs into your browser. If you go to the real website, you’ll often find a warning about the scam. If not, forward them the fake e-mail so they can alert other customers.