How to Avoid Phishing Sites Online like fake Paypal

Phishing sites are mirror images of legitimate sites online. They will steal your account from you and use it to spam other users, in the case of Myspace and Facebook. In the case of sites like ebay and paypal, the phishing site will steal all your personal information-- bank accounts, money, address, social security number, etc... Learn how to avoid phishing sites by reading this article!

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• a computer
• eyes that work

1. 
    
   creditS: http://www.whitecanyon.com/images-pm/phishing-paypal.jpg

   Do not log into a site like Paypal, citibank.com, ebay, amazon, facebook or myspace through an email sent to you by a strange looking email. The email's name may seem legitimate, but it can be sent from some phishing site. Instead of from aol.com, it can be from something like aol-nyc99.com. Also, a phishing site in an email will always say something like there is a problem or a mistake with your account, or that you had paid for something that you probably didn't pay for.

2. make sure you type in the website address URL yourself. in the case of paypal, type in http://www.paypal.com. that way, you are logging into the site itself, instead of a possible phishing site. A phishing site will look almost exactly like the real website, with the exception that most of the time, it will say that it does not recognize your log-in username and password. At that point, it will also ask you to type in information such as your bank account numbers, name, address, social security numbers, mother's maiden name, etc...

3. 
    
   http://www.ghacks.net/files/screens/2007/10/paypal-phishing-website.jpg: look at the URL!!!

   make sure you double check a site to see if it is a phishing site. A phishing site may look exactly like the real site, but the URL will look strange. like instead of paypal.com, it will look like paypal.granger.eu, etc... When you log into a site, make sure you don't save your passwords on the site itself.

Tips & Warnings

• Be very careful of reading emails and the URL in the address box
• So many people have been sucked into these phishing scams. Make sure no one but you know your passwords! Do not log into important websites outside of your home. And even in your home, people can steal your internet and steal your information. so it is advisable to change your passwords every now and then.

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on 8/6/2009 paying good attention is definitely a good idea when receiving seemingly valid emails. Good article.