The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a warning the online scammers may be on the prowl.
Low-lifes that prey on people are taking advantage of the confusion, turmoil and changes that are occurring rapidly in the financial markets.
The bottom line — never, ever respond to a request via email or telephone for sensitive personal information such as account numbers, passwords and Social Security numbers.
Scammers can send very convincing emails that link to very convincing web sites. They will often ask you to confirm or verify something by logging in. At that point they’ve captured your login ID and password and can wreck havoc on your accounts.
Legitimate financial institutions don’t ask you to “verify” information via email, the web or even the telephone. If you ever have a question or any doubt about the validity of a request, you should call the financial institution.
Here is the FTC Consumer Alert, and OnGuardOnline.gov is a great site with lots of information on securing your identity online.
Be very careful out there!
Email This Post 
Print This Post
Previous post: [ Texas beats OU!! ]
Next post: [ The Best Damn Real Estate Blog on the Planet ]
Thanks for reading! We value your thoughts and opinions, so please feel free to leave a comment. Please contact us if you have any questions or need help. You can also get automatic updates for this blog free via:
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Heather did a great job of making me laugh about this same topic — amazing!
http://northphoenixagent.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/your-urgent-help-needed/
**Justin McHood´s last blog post..WSJ: The US Taking Equity Positions In Banks
Some of my favorites include the PayPal account has been closed until further notice and my Arizona Federal Bank account has been closed until further notice. And my all time favorite… My Uncle died and to get the money out of the country they are willing to give me $100 million dollars and need my account info to transfer the money!
**Paul´s last blog post..Vote for Us to Help Us Win Much Needed Funds
Yeah every time something happens the scammers come out to prey. I get emails all the time, some mentioned above by Paul, but haven’t received one yet that talks about the current problems…I’m sure it’s a matter of hours before I get my first – it’s pretty exciting.
If (and it’s rare) the email seems 100% legit I’ll hoover over the links within the email to make sure they go back to the official website of my institution e.g. paypal.com/security/email etc….. – the scammers set up duplicate sites but the URL never lies – real life example
subject – Your Bank of America Account has Been Violated
(funny, I don’t bank with BofA)
Link text within paragraph – hXXX://www.bankofamerica.com/sas/sitekey/profile/step1.htm
Link shown when hoovered over – hXXX:host213-123-251-177.in-addr.btopenXXXXX.com/boaaaa (without Xx)
It’s also REALLY important to not even click on the links in the emails. Often, the scammers just want to know that you actively check the email so that you can get 100s more.
It simply amazes me that people continue to respond with sensitive information online. With all the horror stories you read online, see on tv, and read in the papers one would think that there would be far fewer people that fall for this trap.
I can’t say that I’m surprised, but disappointed. Scammers are low-lives that will use anything under the sun to scam people. Current events seem to be the new niche for them. I remember getting emails when George Carlin died earlier this year with people asking to 1) donate to his family (like he wasn’t rich) and 2) download this awesome video of George, coincidentally in .exe form.
You just have to always be on your toes looking out for people taking advantage of you.
**Alex´s last blog post..Bashing bloggers without a cause
It is amazing how many people get taken advantage of by scammers of all sorts. Currently helping a client work on her credit because she had been paying a company $300 a month for almost 4 years thinking they had been paying off her old collections. In reality they just kept pocketing the money and disappeared after the FTC started looking into them. They even provided false payoff letters from the creditors to keep the clients (victims) from realizing that no payment where being made. It’s really sad as she wouldn’t have any open collections anymore if that $13k had gone towards paying off her collections.
**Ken Smith´s last blog post..Heavy Rains Flood Elgin
This is some very good advice! There have been some homeowners in my area that have ended up signing over their entire home to scammers who made them believe they could keep them from losing their home.
There are many hackers that have tried logging into my information by trying to take over my computer. I am very careful with what I open up on the web. It can lead to a a lot of trouble. Thanks for the tips.
I like the one were they email about man died and they need to send money to me so they can get it. All i need to do is send check to cover cost or let them have my bank number.
There is another link under the category of personal finance but it has nothing to do with finance. If you have difficulties in making payment, you can click the link named
http://www.wachoviabank.com. You will have an expert helping you to fix your problems and you don’t have to go out of
your home to get the service. What you need to do is to choose a button between the two “call us today” and “we’ll call you”. Don’t you think this service shows the
attentiveness and consideration of the Wachovia? It’s really good in my opinion.