Don’t be a victim! – How to avoid being Phished
Nowadays, internet technology made it to the point that it is easily accessible by everyone. I myself access some of my important accounts through internet… like banking, paying bills, communication with my loved ones here and abroad. Though generally, it made our lives easy and account accessible anywhere, we can’t deny that thieves, hackers and criminals found another way to invade our privacy and personal accounts. With so many people having access to the internet these people have found a way to take advantage of this technology and separate us from our money. The internet crosses so many international boundaries and criminals can operate from basically anywhere theres a computer with access on the internet thats why its almost impossible to get those criminals. Phishing is just one of the many schemes used by criminals to stole money online.
I have a friend who once became a victim of this. She log on to a fake e-gold site and poof! suddenly all her funds in her account was transfered into an unknown account. This is called PHISHING. Phishing is a scam method wherin crooks sends out fake email in order to try and get valuable information on its victim, it is usually private information or financial record. they pretend to come from a well known bank, tell you that someone has changed your password or that your account will be terminated if you don’t confirm your details, and give you a link to click on.
If you you fall into their scam, you will be directed to a false website where they use to collect information you entered ad alter will be used to log in to your bank account or credit card and steal your hard earned money. In some case the crooks used your private information and used your whole identity to apply for fake loans. Before you know it your whole credit and financial history is ruined in a matter of hours.
Fortunately there are things you can do to avoid being phished.
- No matter how genuine it looks the most important thing you should do is to NEVER respond to an email that appears to come from your financial institution. If you have to log on to your account, do not use the link included in the mail. Open a new browser, and type the URL manually.
- If you have doubt, contact your bank (don’t use the bank phone number listed on the mail), ask them if the mail you received is legitimate.
- Never click on any links or urls in the mails, don’t reply, don’t acknowledge.
- Delete the suspected mail as fast as possible
- When visiting websites be very cautious in giving out private informations and check if the site is secure.
Be aware also that phishing isn’t just limited to financial institutions. Phishing scams can also disguise as mails from well-known stores. They will give you a special offer just to click on the link. If you click on the link you will end up at their website not the store and will steal your information. Before you click anything and If you happen to be interested on that particular item or deal being offered it will be better to contact the store and seek assistance on the particular deal.
If you receive such scams it’s always a good idea to notify the company that appears on the mail. You can notify scams to paypal via spoof@paypal.com or you can report to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, although this mainly deals with the more threatening and widespread phishing scams.
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27 Comments
Oh those phishers!
Let us stop them, don’t be a victim!
This post is really a big help. Thank you for this.
your welcome. I have a friend that lost her account because of this scamming method that is also why I shared this article to give valuable information at the same time give warning.
The best way to avoid this is save your passwords in your browser. Once you type your ID password browser will filled the password option and you do noy have to type yourself.
I think this is the best idea and because of this I also saved myself two times from phishing. So guys who ever read this try this technique from today onwards.
thanks for the post and it is really a very big help.
thanks for the tips! i did not browse links from my emails to avoid it.
Some time they send such kind of messages that you cant avoid them and hence you click on their ads and you just trapped with their motto.
So for that you should always apply your presence of mind or you should keep an habbit of looking at address bar before giving the passwords.
yeah… It’s pretty annoying… when I stumbled to those kind of sites… I make sure that I don’t go back there… unless for emergency situations hehehe
Spammers and hackers have invented new techniques and with this they have also added some sentimental issues as well. Like sending such kind of messages which you would love to see.
So they are using everything and want to attack internet users in every way.
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thanks for the tips,it is a great help to us and thanks you for this.
So they are using everything and want to attack internet users in every way.
It is the great deed to deal with such issues as such.
Thanks for the tips,it is a great help to us and thanks you for this post !
I got an email yesterday from a Mrs. James, the wife of the late Mr. James who was a successful businessman until his death. She offered me 4 million dollars to help her transfer 10 million to the United States. She made sure to point out that it was U.S. Dollars. I just don’t know how people keep falling for this stuff! There must still be people falling for it or they wouldn’t still be doing it.
Yes… sad to say but there are still some people falling to that kind of trick. I just hope more bloggers provide more security tips to enlighten more internet users not to fall to those kinds of tricks.
Phishing is the one of the easiest method to hack accounts.The main culprits are web hosts.why they are not checking accounts for phisher? The people who suffers the most are from warez sites who downloads the illegal sw.
yes it’s one of the easiest method. that is also why it is always recommended to buy legitimate products from a legitimate source.
guys who ever read this try this technique from today onwards.Like sending such kind of messages which you would love to see.She offered me 4 million dollars to help her transfer 10 million to the United States.I just don’t know how people keep falling for this stuff! There must still be people falling for it or they wouldn’t still be doing it.
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Oh those phishers!Let us stop them, don’t be a victim!This post is really a big help. Thank you for this Spammers and hackershave also added some sentimental issues as well. Like sending such kind of messages which you would love to see.
I think this is the best idea and because of this I also saved myself two times from phishing. So guys who ever read this try this technique from today onwards.your welcome. I have a friend that lost her account because of this scamming method that is also why I shared this article to give valuable information at the same time give warning.
Great blog post, Mayank. Yes, it is surprising how many people fall for this. It also does not help that, compared to MySpace or Friendster, Facebook was really good about keeping these phishing attacks out so people got very trusting of any messages sent within the face book domain..
thanx for give this information that we can account accessible anywhere, we can’t deny that thieves, hackers and criminals found another way to invade our privacy and personal accounts.
I hate those phishers! There are phishers even on game sites like Gaia. How ridiculous. They can’t even use the gold they stole from an account in real life. They are so pathetic.
Whenever I get these types of emails, or a random link from a friend my main method of checking if the link is legit is the following.. I take my mouse and I hover over the link, this does not open the link, but it will display what the URL is without me opening the link, most of the time I can tell that the URL is fake, and not from who they claim to be.
-Randy
Any of you guy’s heard about phising in twitter? Hmmmm.. what could be the significant data to be phised out from twitter?
if you got too many followers then i think it will be beneficial for the phisher, other than that i also don’t see any benefits
I often have a some scam information from both my IM and e-mail. Fortunately, I am not phised. Please chase the phised guy.. I hate it,,
Thanks for the information. I had my information stolen about a year ago. I’m sure it was because of this. I wish I had known this information earlier
The really good thing if you have several email accounts: Since these guys send out mass mails, you can often instantly spot scams when you are getting the same mail to multiple accounts. Unfortunately their grammar gets better every day, methods more and more sophisticated.
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