
Welcome Guest	Home \| Submit Article \| Contact \| Search

ArticleSubject.com » Culture-and-society » Scams » How Do You Know an Email Phishing Scam When You See One?

How Do You Know an Email Phishing Scam When You See One?

by: SandraWilson
Total views: 3
Word Count: 410

Email phishing is a very dangerous and potentially financially fatal trap that is sent via email from what appears to be a financial institution to an individual. Most of the phishing emails that one will receive are very easy to notice as fraud emails, but there are some that are very sophisticated and can take time to identify.

Basically, most email phishing scams are an attempt to gain your information, both personal and financial. With this information, the phisher can assume your identity in order to, for example, set up fraudulent accounts or he can just outright steal money from your banking or other financial accounts.

One popular phishing email is the foreigner who wants to or needs to move money out of his country to the States. Feeling sorry for his plight, the generous email receipient will allow give him the information needed to access their own bank account. To tell the truth, what often precipitates this generosity is the simple fact that greed takes over for the poor foreigner will offer to pay you from the funds transferred. You might just see a small amount of money transferred to the account but the next thing you know, all you have will be removed from your account. As long as these scams have been around, some people still fall for them.

Other phishing techniques include sending an official looking email from what one is led to believe is the bank of that individual. This email is requesting that you update the personal information on the website that they have provided a link to. When you hit the link, the website that they have listed is not the website that you goes to, although it often has the same appearance of a bank website. This type of email phishing is of a much higher level of sophistication than other types and can be harder to identify. You should be aware that many, if not all, financial institutions will never request that you update your personal information via a website.

Whether you are playing or working online, you need to keep your wits about you regarding the emails you receive. Perhaps the best thing you can do to help prevent email phishing is to report any emails that you get that look suspicious. Maybe once in awhile, you will report one that is completely legitimate. But this is a case of just better safe than sorry.

Advertisements
Click here to join VC Affiliates - Fantastic revenue share, CPA and Hybrid Structures available!

About the Author

What Is Phishing and tips to assist you bypass these scams can be discovered, in addition to information on what to look for in a phishing scam, at http://www.antiphishingscams.com/