It started out innocently enough – while browsing Facebook’s Minneapolis/St. Paul marketplace, I noticed a classified ad offering up two English bulldog puppies, free to a good home. As a dog lover, I immediately responded to the advertisement with questions about the dogs, along with my name, e-mail address and cell phone number.
A friendly woman named Jean responded to my message within minutes, answered all of my questions, and even attached a dozen photos of the dogs. Excitedly, I forwarded the message to my boyfriend, and quickly requested to setup a time to come see the pups.
Once again, Jean’s response was lightning quick, but she made a confession – she was located in Cameroon, and while she was in fact offering the puppies free, she urgently needed me to have them shipped to the States within the next 48 hours. Jean linked me to her “bank” and said that in order to save the dog’s lives, I would need to wire her at least $800. At this point, I heard the warning bells going off – obviously, this was a scam.
Each day, hundreds of attempted swindles like this one are run on Craigslist, eBay, Facebook, or even directly to your e-mail account in the form of spam. Sometimes these scammers will claim to be important (and presumably trustworthy) individuals like doctors, princes or lawyers. Other times, they’ll masquerade as simple every day people – like Jean. In each case, their goal is the same – to trick you into giving up something that’s important to you. This may be something as basic as your MySpace password, something personal like your social security or bank account number, or maybe even something of monetary value, like an expensive item you were trying to sell on eBay. These types of scams are called “phishing”, (a variant of the word fishing) which simply means, a scammer who is actively fishing for your information!
As an active internet user, you will likely encounter a few phishing attempts, but by following some ground rules, you can keep from becoming a victim.
- Verify the validity of un-personalized messages.
Real correspondence should be addressed to you, and will likely use your name in the salutation. If you receive a message that seems too generic, be sure to verify the sender’s identity before responding.
- Never respond to e-mails or instant messages requesting sensitive data such as passwords, personal information or bank account numbers.
If your bank urgently needs to contact you, they’ll call you on the phone. In addition, most internet sites have strict policies about what kind of information they won’t request via e-mail, and your password is usually one of them.
- Don’t pay attention to internet threats.
If you’re facing foreclosure or your credit card has been canceled, your bank will contact you via phone or paper mail – not e-mail. Review the details of the correspondence before responding. Have you ever done business with this company? Should they have this e-mail address? Have they ever contacted you via e-mail before? If you are concerned about the status of your accounts, contact your bank by phone rather than e-mail.
- Never follow links within e-mails sent from unknown sources.
Phishers often disguise their own websites to look like popular websites for reputable companies like eBay or your financial institution. By using these fake websites, phishers can steal your password, social security number or bank account information. If an e-mail seems suspicious or you don’t know the sender, never click on the link – always type in the site’s address yourself.
- If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is.
A real Nigerian prince probably isn’t going to select you to receive 20% of his inheritance just for putting it into your bank account, nor is a woman in Cameroon going to send you free puppies. Be wary of strangers contacting you with unlikely opportunities.
- Think it through!
Phishers don’t succeed because they’re technologically brilliant – they succeed because users are willing to give up their personal information. If you don’t give them the information they want, they can’t take advantage of you.
