Phishing is a nasty business in which someone tries to get you to give out your username and password information to an unauthorized party.  Phishers take this information and use it to steal your personal information and, in many cases, your money!  How can you protect yourself from these scammers?

1.  Never ever click on a link sent to you in an e-mail unless that e-mail is from a person that you know personally.  Phishers are clever and they have figured out how to make “dummy” addresses that look official!  These links will usually take you to a site that was made to look exactly like a “real” site but that is only set up to collect your information.

2.  When you are visiting a membership site and you are taken to a page that says “You have signed out! Please re-login to resume your session” manually type the URL of the membership site’s home page into your web browser and re-login that way.

3.  When entering financial information into a website always make sure that the site is secure.  Look for the padlock that is displayed in the bottom corner of your web browser—it is there to illustrate that your information is being sent over a secure system, and not being entered into a cleverly disguised opt-in form!

Spotting a phishing scam can sometimes be tricky.  These scammers are clever and can create e-mail addresses and websites that look 100% legitimate.  Keep an eye out for the two most common mistakes phishers make:

1.  “Dear [INSERT NAME] or Customer,” if the e-mail is not addressed specifically to you, it is likely that it is a phishing scam!

2.  The URL looks strange.  Many phishers will transpose just a couple of letters of a site’s address or they will use the correct word but it will be as a subdomain.  For example: “realstie.com” or “realsite.otherbusinessname.com.”

Remember, there is no such thing as being too careful when it comes to protecting your personal information!