We all know that criminals are out there, waiting to steal our credit card information. These criminals want credit card information so they can charge a fee and then let you walk away with the bag – with nothing to show for it. While some are local, most credit card criminals are in faraway places. Worse, they like to hide or use other names, so it’s almost impossible to track them down.
The most common way for criminals to obtain credit card information is through phishing, which involves a fake email that appears to be sent by your credit card company. Often, this fake email will say that there was an error on your account or that your account was accessed by an unauthorized person and requires your attention.
Spotting fake emails isn’t hard – as long as you know what to look for. For most people, the most obvious tip-off is that they don’t even have the credit card of the company sending the email. For others, the link is what leaks the fake email. When you receive a credit card email that you think is fake, you should always hover over the link and then “right-click” on the link with your mouse and select “View Source”. If the link is indeed fake, the website address that appears will not be the address of the credit card company.
Criminals don’t want you to see the source of their site because they just want you to click on the link before you look at anything else. Once you click on the link, you will arrive at a site that is usually an exact copy of the credit card site. The fake website usually includes everything from the actual website, including the logo and banner. Such pages are easy to create even for the most amateur credit card criminals.
Those who have fallen victim to this scam may realize too late what they have done. Once you have entered your credit card information, you have played right into the hands of the criminals and set yourself up for credit card fraud and identity theft. Once a criminal has your Social Security number and credit card information, he is more likely to use it to go on a shopping spree – stealing your money and draining your account.
If you receive such an email, you should always delete it. Even if you just click on a fake website to investigate, it may do more harm than good. Even though you may not have entered any information at all, your computer may have been infected with a virus or spyware simply because you clicked on the link. To avoid this situation altogether, you should not click on a link to what you believe to be a fake credit card company website.
If you do your job and protect your credit card information, you won’t have to worry about anything at all. Your personal information is very important because you never want it to fall into the wrong hands. As long as you protect it, you won’t have anything to worry about. There are always criminals out there, which is why you should always be vigilant. Criminals want your personal information and your credit card numbers – it’s up to you to make sure they don’t get it. Criminals will do anything to get what they want, which is why it’s so important to protect yourself today.