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

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.

Most email phishing is seen as the attempt of an individual to gain your account numbers or other personal information. This information can then be used to complete a transaction which includes them removing money from your account or stealing your identity.

One type of common email phishing scheme is where someone from another country supposedly needs to transfer funds to a bank account in the U.S. He requests you please help him get his inheritance, or whatever he claims he needs, out of his country. You can do this by allowing him to put the money in your bank account and for this service, you will receive a percentage or set amount. To show good faith, a small amount of money will be transferred to your account. Looks good but the next thing you know, most, if not all, of your money will be drained out of your account. This scam works by addressing your greed – do next to nothing and get paid for it.

A much more sophisticated type of phishing email is one that appears to be from your banking institution. It will have all the right headers and colors and look very official. It will usually state that due to some problem, you need to go and update your personal information at their website. The email will even kindly present you with a link to the site. You click this and go to a site that looks just like what you would expect at your financial institution. However, if you do enter your login and password, you have just given the crooks what they need to get into your account at the real financial institution’s website. Do NOT ever go to your financial institution’s website through a link within an email. Just a sound piece of advice.

What you can do the most to help with this email phishing problem is to take action and report any email that doesn’t look right. If you receive emails from anyone asking you to do something money wise that you did not request, report it to the authorities. You would much rather report a perfectly legitimate email and have made a mistake than to not have and end up losing your identity or money.