With the increase in shopping and decrease in time to keep an eye on bank accounts and distraction leading to a decreased vigilance in investigating emails from 'trusted' sources, the phishers out there are having a field day and have stepped up their efforts. If you receive an email from a financial institution requesting sensitive information, or that you log in to a 'secure' website to 'verify' personal info, PLEASE report it to the bank's security department! ; A reputable bank will never as for such info via email. ; I know RBC has a link on their main web-site to report a security concern... I would imagine the other Big Banks have a similar feature... otherwise, call their 1-800 customer service number to verify the authenticity of the email or get instructions for reporting it to their security department. To borrow from ING's ad campaign... SAVE your money!
Yeah... we got the phishing reminder at work on Monday, so I wasn't surprised to hear it in the news yesterday
The phishing has been really bad lately! ; We even got one in French from the Laurentian Bank! Also beware of "vishing". ; It's a new one, where the bottom-feeders are targeting people with Internet based phone systems like vonage. ; Anybody get those automated calls on their home phone... an important business matter for... We've gotten a few... ; even got one on my work cell phone!
Yeah... we've been getting some pretty strange calls at home... but we're not on a VOIP system. ; We do have call display, though, so we tend to doubt the calls that come in from numbers like 123-456-7890 ( I kid you not... they called 3 times a day for 2 weeks!).... Some of them are easy to notice... if the area code has a second digit that's not a 1 or 0 (with a few notable exceptions... like 647 and 287 in the GTA where 416 and 905 split, for example), chances are decent that it's an IP-based telemarketer, since they can select whatever area code and number they want when they set up their call centres with an IP phone company. Of course, I tend to distrust the phone in general *laugh* ; And would never give out my personal info over the phone unless I initiated the call. ; The way I see it... my bank already has all my personal info (I know... I deal with their data warehouse on a daily basis), and if they need anything confirmed, they'll encourage a face-to-face appointment. There are some things that just shouldn't be done... you should never give out your personal info (SIN, Mother's Maiden Name, Account or PIN information, etc.) via phone or internet unless YOU initiate the contact (so you can ensure you're dealing with the real company)... you should never send personal info (as above, or Credit Card info) via FAX... valid telemarketers are required to have a phone number where you can call them back (and the phone company should be able to help you verify that the number belongs to the company who says they're calling)... if they won't let you call them back, or come up on your call display (if you've got it) with a blocked number, treat it with high suspicion. Ok... I'm not really as paranoid as that sounds *laugh*
