Studying how to avoid phishing scams is one of the major concerns of Internet users. Many criminals have used the WWW to rip off people; especially those who are just beginning to get familiar with the web. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission, FBI and Earthlink are warning Web users to be more cautious in using the Web because there are many online scams that are using spoofing or phishing tools, which require sending email that is disguised as a company or bank correspondence in order to get recipient’s identity. Below are some of the things you could do to prevent falling into the trap cast by online scams operating on the Web.
The first step that you have to be aware of on how to avoid spoofing scams is to be suspicious. If you receive e-mails asking you to verify information, give card numbers, or provide personal data, such as social security number, you should be suspicious. Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions would not send emails like these. When you read such emails, you should contact your bank and credit card or other financial institutions to verify their request. You should also see and make a note of the web address found in the header of the suspicious e-mails. Big financial companies usually use .com, .net or .org and would be fairly easy to identify.