A big scam today is sending you an email that claims it is from your bank,
credit card company or other business that handles online money transactions.
When you get an email from a company stating that they need to have you provide
sensitive personal information, immediately use caution!
When this type of scam first started you would be asked to provide sensitive personal information in the email itself. Legitimate institutions sent emails to their customers stating that they NEVER ask for sensitive personal information in an email. So the scammers changed their game. They now include a link in their email that is supposed to connect you to a secure page of the institution they claim to represent.
When this type of scam first started you would be asked to provide sensitive personal information in the email itself. Legitimate institutions sent emails to their customers stating that they NEVER ask for sensitive personal information in an email. So the scammers changed their game. They now include a link in their email that is supposed to connect you to a secure page of the institution they claim to represent.
Click the link and see what happens. Often a page appears that looks like the real web page of the company. At this point take a good look at the web address of the page which always appears on the address line of your browser. If the page address begins with anything but 'https' it is not a secure site. It is bogus page! Legitimate companies always provide links that take you to a secure site to enter sensitive personal information!
The identity thieves never give up. Sometimes they insert an address bar at the top of the page they display which contains an address beginning with https. Don't be fooled by this. Check your browser's address bar and you will see that the page address actually begins with http! Any information you provide on the http page will be taken and misused!
If you are in doubt about whether a request is legitimate, copy the address of the page you've been asked to send your information to and paste it into an email. Send the email to a contact at the company mentioned in the email and ask if they have requested information from you. Legitimate companies you do business with will always provide you a link to their secure 'https' site when requesting information from you!