Identity theft is common on the Internet

E-mail financial scams cost people millions of dollars per year in monetary damage. A somewhat modern scheme used by identity theft crooks is the idea of "phishing" where an apparently legitimate electronic mail message seeks to encourage individuals to provide financial information by means of the World Wide Web. Americans who browse the Internet regularly ought to be careful to avoid becoming victimized by electronic criminals. You don’t want to become a victim of identity theft.

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Questionable e-mail messages usually contain a link that the recipient may click to clear up the problem with his or her account. Electronic mail notices frequently warn the recipient that some security breach has taken place with his or her account, and that some action must be taken by the recipient to fix the crisis. E-mail notices that appear to be from lending organizations, online store Amazon or auction site Ebay show up in e-mail inboxes regularly. There's just one problem - not a word contained in the message is true.

The notices, at least on their surface, almost certainly appear to be genuine. Criminals on the Internet, determined to acquire vital personal financial information that can be exploited, are sending out electronic mail messages by the billions each day, targeting clients of well-known financial institutions with genuine-looking queries. Unrequested messages from financial institutions are an example of "phishing", a hot new utility used by identity theft and credit theft crooks. A good number of of these missives suggest bad outcomes for anyone who elects to ignore them, closing of the account being the most prevalent. How can an individual who is genuinely worried about the security of his financial information tell a genuine message from a falsified one?

• Following are a number of clues to whether a message is a phishing expedition or a real one.
  
  Watch out for misspellings. Often the messages, which look OK at a glance, are full of funny misspelled terminology and bad grammar. A great number of of these criminals reside in foreign countries, where English isn't the usual language.
• Check the links themselves in the electronic mail notice. The link may say "www.amazon.com" but the actual address may be a string of numbers, such as "213.126.100.256" or a similar Uniform Resource Locator, or URL to the real one. Frequently in phishing notices, what the link says and where the link goes are two completely different things. When you move your mouse over a link in an electronic mail message, many e-mail programs will show you the URL or Internet address to which the link points. Watch for links that seem to direct to a site other than where they really go.
• One indication that indicates a fake message will come from the salutation. "Dear customer" would be a strange greeting for an actual patron of a company to receive in an e-mail notice. If you do business with a company, they likely know your name, and they would use your name in the greeting. EBay, PayPal, Amazon, or any other financial institution would likely greet you by name, not by "Dear customer."

The solution to avoiding being caught in a phishing scam is to not reply to such notices. Contact organizations with whom you conduct business by going to their Website, or contact them on the phone if you have any inquiries. Don't reply to e-mail messages that might or might not have come from the actual company. It's prefereable to be safe and sound than sorry, and it helps to be suspicious. If you are not, then you may become the latest victim of this crime. When you conduct business with a bank, online payment business, credit card company or eBay, and you need to get in touch with them, do so directly.