Cyber Crooks Go “Phishing”

      - by Jim Edwards

© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
  http://www.thenetreporter.com  
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"Phishing," the latest craze among online evil-doers, has nothing to
do with sitting at the end of a dock on a sunny afternoon dangling a
worm to entice hungry catfish.

But, if you take their bait, this new breed of online con artist
will hook you, reel you in, and take you for every dollar you
have… or worse.

"Phishing" describes a combination of techniques used by cyber
crooks to bait people into giving up sensitive personal data such as
credit card numbers, social security numbers, bank account numbers,
dates of birth and more.

Their techniques work so well that, according to
FraudWatchInternational.com, "phishing" rates as the fastest growing
scam on the Internet.

Here’s the basic pattern for a "phishing" scam…

You receive a very official email that appears to originate from a
legitimate source, such as a bank, eBay, PayPal, a major retailer,
or some other well known entity.

In the email it tells you that something bad is about to happen
unless you act quickly.

Typically it tells you that your account is about to get closed,
that someone appears to have stolen your identity, or even that
someone opened a fraudulent account using your name.

In order to help straighten everything out, you need to click a link
in the email and provide some basic account information so they can
verify your identity and then give you additional details so you can
help get everything cleared up.

Once you give up your information… it’s all over but the crying!

After getting your information, these cyber-bandits can empty your
bank accounts, deplete your PayPal accounts, run up your credit card
balances, open new credit accounts, assume your identity and much
worse.

An especially disturbing new variation of this scam specifically
targets online business owners and affiliate marketers.

In this con, the scammer’s email informs you that they’ve just sent
$1,219.43 (or a similar big but believable amount) in affiliate
commissions to you via PayPal.

They need you to log into your PayPal account to verify receipt of
the money and then email them back to confirm you got it.

Since you’re so excited at the possibility of an unexpected pay day,
you click the link to go to PayPal, log in, and BANG! They have your
PayPal login information and can empty your account.

This new "phishing" style scam works extremely well for 2 basic
reasons.

First, by exploiting your sense of urgency created by fear or greed,
crooks get you to click the link and give them your information
without thinking.

Second, the scammers use a variety of cloaking and spoofing
techniques to make their emails and websites appear totally
legitimate, making it extremely hard to spot a fake website,
especially when they’ve first whipped you into an emotional frenzy.

The good news, however, is that you can protect yourself relatively
easily against this type of cyber-crime with basic software and
common sense.

Most of these scams get delivered to you via Spam (unsolicited
email), so a good spam blocker will cut down on many of them even
making it to your inbox.

If you receive an email that looks legitimate and you want to
respond, Stop - Wait - Think!

Verify all phone numbers with a physical phone book or online phone
directory like www.Verizon.com or www.ATT.com/directory/ before
calling.

Look for spelling and grammatical errors that make it look like
someone who doesn’t speak English or your native language very well
wrote it.

Never click the link provided in the email, but go directly to the
website by typing in the main address of the site yourself (example:
www.paypal.com or www.ebay.com).

Forward the email to the main email address of the website (example:
support@paypal.com) or call the customer service number on the main
website you typed in yourself and ask if it is in fact legitimate.

Above all remember this:

Your bank, credit card company, PayPal, eBay and anyone else you
deal with online already knows your account number, username,
password or any other account specific information.

They don’t need to email you for ANY reason to ask you to confirm
your information — so NEVER respond to email requests for your
account or personal details.

– Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author
of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr-e articles
to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or
affiliate links…

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