Internet 'phishing'
Internet scammers casting about for personal financial information have a new way of ‘catching' unsuspecting victims. They go ‘phishing', also known as ‘carding' or ‘spoofing'.
Phishing is a high-tech scam to deceive consumers into disclosing their credit card, bank account or any other personal or sensitive information.
According to the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the e-mails pretend to be from businesses that the potential victims already deal with. For example, their internet service provider, on-line payment service or bank.
The fraudsters tell the recipients that they need to ‘update' or ‘validate' their billing information, to keep the account active. They are then directed to a ‘look-a-like' web site of the legitimate business, which further deceives them into believing that they are responding to an authentic request. The information passed over is then used by the scammers, to order goods and services and to obtain credit in their victim's name.
To avoid getting caught, the FTC offers this guidance:
- If you get an e-mail that warns you, with little or no notice, that an account of yours will be shut down if you do not re-confirm your billing information, do not reply. Do not even click on the link in the e-mail. Instead, contact the company direct, by e-mail or a telephone number that you know to be genuine.
- Avoid e-mailing personal and financial details if possible. If you have no option, look for the ‘lock' icon on the browser's status bar. It signals that the information is secure during transmission.
- If you have good cause to suspect that your personal details have been stolen by fraudsters either by e-mail or on the internet, you should report the incident to your Internet Service Provider (ISP), via their abuse hotline (e.g. abuse@yahoo.com, abuse@aol.com etc). They are in a position to close down sites that are found to be bogus.