Helpful Hint
Being the computer geek that I am, I figured I’d help those of you who might not be so tech savvy. The topic? Email fraud, spam, whatever you want to call it.
The biggest example is PayPal. Ever so often, I get fake emails saying my PayPal account has been suspended, they need to verify my personal information, etc. How do I know they are fake? After all, there’s the PayPal logo right there! And when I click the link, it takes me to PayPal’s website! Not so fast.
Look a little closer. Notice there’s no trademark on the PayPal logo? When you click the link to go to the website, notice how the the web address doesn’t start with “www.paypal.com”? Tricky, tricky!
Tonight, I received an email from Commonwealth Credit Union. Strangely, I don’t have an account with them. Sure enough, when I click the link, it takes me to somewhere other than CCU’s actual website.
It’s a cruel world, folks. Hopefully this helps some of you avoid getting scammed.
Rule #1: If you receive an email directing to you to one of your financial sites, never follow the link in the email. Open a web browser (I recommend Firefox, btw) and manually type in the name of the financial institutions website as you always do. Once logged in, if there was some important thing you needed to do, it would be made known to you at this time.
This will eliminate 100% of email phishing scams poised to look like one of your financial accounts.
Justin
2 Aug 06 at 2:16 am
Yeah, I agree with Justin, I wouldn’t even click the link in the email, and go directly to the source. Who knows what’ll come up.
Jenny T (Justin and Emily's friend)
4 Aug 06 at 8:31 am