Phishing

Do you subscribe or receive newsletters from your online vendor? If so you need to be aware of phishing. Phishing is a term used to describe the act of obtaining personal and valuable information by pretending to be a safe seller. Phishing can come in forms of emails, snail mail, telephone calls and instant messaging.
Always check who the email is from. For example you subscribe to ebay’s newsletter. Is it from johnsmith@ebay.com or is it from johnsmith@someotherdomian.com
Which email address would you trust?

Shoppers should also be aware of link manipulation. Ask yourself where the link will take you. You can find out by rolling your mouse over the hyperlink. The address will appear in the lower left corner of the screen. Sometimes the link is very long due to programming requirements. The link is often safe if you see the domain name inside it.
For technical measures try to visit the website by manually typing in the domain address or use the bookmarked address.

Turn your firewall on. Sometimes firewalls and other virus protection programs can also detect phishing emails.

Companies tend to address their customers by name, so if you see a “Dear (insert company name) customer, it is quite possible that the email is a fake.

So for an a quick overview, you can prevent being caught phishing by slightly changing your browsing habits. Always check to see if you are being led to the domain name and look at the sender address. Type in the hyperlink if you can.

You can also do a quick background check using your Yahoo Toolbar. This is a free download and may even save you from becoming a phishing victim. You can download the toolbar here.

Cheers and have a good online shopping experience

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