More on that in a moment.
Recently it seems like the amount of email scams has quadrupled. The most onerous of these attempts to get information from you are the spoof or phishing emails. These are emails that look like an official notice from, say, your credit card company, your bank or PayPal and E bay. The messages generally say something about some problem with your account and ask you log in to verify your information.
The bogus ones are usually pretty easy to spot. Like the one that suggested someone was trying to use my MasterCard account and I should log in to give them my personal information to verify stuff. The only small glitch in the deal?
I don’t have a MasterCard.
But the other night I did have some problems logging in to one of my credit card sites. I forgot the password and tried twice to log in before I went and looked it up and got in.
The next day I got an email for that credit card. It told me that someone had tried to log in to my account with wrong passwords and that I, of course, had to verify my information. And I almost went for it. Until I noticed, alert consumer that I am, that the credit card company was asking for my credit card number. Huh?
I was curious enough that I called customer service and told them about it. “Oh yes,†they explained. “We never would do that and thanks for letting us know about the scam.â€
Then they tried to sell me something. I got confused because I was to put it mildly a little angry. I think it was either protection for fraudulent transactions (which my credit card has already) or a credit report.
Now let’s recap. I caught someone trying to cheat me. I told the credit card company. Their response? Thanks and send us more money.
I think I’ve got it straight.
I just had a terrible thought. I will probably be hunted down like a rabid dog and shot in the back for suggesting this.
I am beginning to suspect that the credit card companies are behind this whole fake email deal.
Paranoid? Sure.
But then again I could be right.
