Help prevent identity theft from phishing scams
What is a phishing scam?
 There's a new form of spam e-mail that is more than just unwanted and annoying. The new form of spam e-mail could lead to the theft of your credit card numbers, passwords, account information, or other personal data. Read on to find out more about this new identity theft scam and to learn how to help protect your privacy. What is phishing?Phishing is a type of deception designed to steal your identity. In phishing schemes, scam artists try to get you to disclose valuable personal data-like credit card numbers, passwords, account data, or other information-by convincing you to provide it under false pretenses. Phishing schemes can be carried out in person, over the phone, or online through spam e-mail or pop-up windows. How does phishing work?A phishing scam sent by e-mail may start with con artists who send millions of e-mail messages that appear to come from popular Web sites or sites that you trust, like your bank or credit card company. The e-mail messages, pop-up windows, and the Web sites they link to appear official, so they deceive many people into believing that they are legitimate. Unsuspecting people too often respond to these requests for their credit card numbers, passwords, account information, or other personal data. What does a phishing scam look like?As scam artists become more sophisticated, so do their phishing e-mail messages and pop-up windows. They often include official-looking logos from real organizations and other identifying information taken directly from legitimate Web sites. The following is an example of what a phishing scam e-mail message might look like.  Example of a phishing e-mail message, including a deceptive URL address linking to a scam Web site To make a phishing e-mail message look even more legitimate, the scam artists might place a link in it that appears to go to a legitimate Web site (1), but it actually takes you to a phony scam site (2) or possibly a pop-up window that looks exactly like the official site. These fake sites are also called "spoofed" Web sites. Once you're at one of these spoofed sites, you might unwittingly send personal information to the con artists. They then often use your information to purchase goods, apply for a new credit card, or otherwise steal your identity. To learn how you can spot a phishing e-mail scam, read How can I tell if an e-mail message is fraudulent?
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