Do not byte on Phishing emails,

There are always people who want to steal your personal information and what you own. These people go fishing (phishing) for your information by sending you a fake email from a banking institution or other financial entity.  We will look at how to recognise one of these fakes. Usually they should be sent to your spam folder, but some get though. In the picture is one that I received recently.

There are many tell tale signs of a fraudulent e-mail.

1. Sender's e-mail address. To give you a false sense of security, the “From” line may include an official-looking e-mail address that may actually be copied from a genuine one. E-mail addresses can easily be spoofed, so just because it looks like it’s from someone you trust, you can’t always be sure.
2. Attachments. Similar to fake links, attachments can be used in fraudulent e-mails. Never click on or open an attachment. It could cause you to download spyware or a virus. Capital One will never e-mail you an attachment or a software update to install on your computer. In general, never open unexpected attachments from anyone.
3. Generic greeting. A typical fraudulent e-mail will have a generic greeting, such as “Dear Account Holder.”
4. False sense of urgency. Most fraudulent e-mails threaten to close your account or assess some penalty if you don’t respond right away. An e-mail that urgently requests you to supply sensitive personal information is typically fraudulent.
5. Typos and grammatical mistakes. Errors like these are a clear sign the e-mail is fraudulent.
6. Treat all links in E-mails as potentially unsafe. Many fraudulent e-mails have a link that looks valid, but sends you to a fake site that may or may not have a URL different from the link. As always, if it looks suspicious, don't click it.

Step 1 Looking closer.

This email looks so official but it is so deceiving. If you go down and look at "Update and verify your online billing" it is a like to a fake website to steal you personal information. If you hover over the link (DO NOT DOUBLE CLICK IT!!!), you should see where the link actually goes to. Legitimate websites do not have humbers (aka an ip address) before the company name. The second picture shows the actual "Capital One" site. The url as you can see looks like a real website with no numbers in front. You have determined now this is a fake email.

Comments

[lemonie]

Perhaps this doesn't happen to you, but I tend to look at the e-mail header and think "I don't have an account with that bank" (then delete it)

L

[valhallas_end]

Obnoxiously, I get a lot of spam/phish mails with the header posing as my own bank. They may even go so far as to have the correct routing number or such in the email.

It may also be a problem for anyone who deals with money transfers. You can get a flagged email sent to your account whenever someone transfers cash to your account through Western Union - they're solely for notifications (I think the last one I received simply said something along the lines of "Money has been transferred into your [Bank Name] savings account", with no information other than that. Sadly, many people don't realize that and will click the false links...

[lemonie]

I get some from "paypal", but I do have an account (don't read them, but don't delete either)

L

[highvoltageguy]

paypal would not e-mail you.

[Computothought]

Certainly that is obvious, but I like to play detective a little bit. Just in case someone set up an account in my name with money in the account. Stranger things have happened.