Today I dudged what could have been a devastating BULLET to my bank account. It seems this is not an isolated incident according to both my banks.

I received an email that lookied so real is is scary. It said the bank was having some problem verifying my account blah, blah, and for me to click onto the link given and update and/or correct my personal info. I was leary as I had made no changes to my account whatsoever. I called the bank who in turn sent me to the 'fraud division' and they were emphatic that the bank would NEVER send out such an email or any for that matter and to forward it to their fraud department.

So if you should get such an email, call your bank and save yourself a real headache from someone stealing your banking information. OMG! I can't even think how awful that would be.

Please don't post over this for awhile, so everyone has a chance to be warned. I can't tell you how authentic that email looked.

Chat, I get a lot of those as well and I send them directly to my spam inbox. I don't do banking online which is enough for me to be suspicious of them.

chatty, I no longer use Pay Pal because I'd receive all these emails that were similar to what you received, but they had to do with my Pay Pal account.I got tired of trying to decipher them so I dropped my account.

I would never respond to any banking email. EVER. I use Paypal and have for years. The fraudulent emails come in spurts. I'll get them for a while, then they'll switch over to body parts, then Paypal, then banking, whatever. I just hit delete, delete, delete.

Chatty, these types of phishing schemes have been going on for some time, and yes, it's dead easy to get hoodwinked. No reputable bank is going to attempt to do business via e-mail; neither is eBay or PayPal, in terms of money. NEVER click through an e-mail link like that. If you want to know something, go to the official website.

I report those kinds of fraudulent e-mails as well.

Oh, here's another one I heard about, so you can get even more worried. Do not permit someone you do not know to call you and pretend to be a fraud investigator from your credit card company. That individual might already have a lot of your information but is looking for the 3-digit code on the back of your card to complete a theft. Call them back instead. It's scary.

Another thing you can do is keep ALL of the 1-800 numbers close by of any banking, credit card, or important sites (such as Purtian Pride were you order from them) so that if you get a suspicious email, you can call them and report it. DON'T CLICK ON THE EMAIL.

Just report it, as Ellemm said.

I stopped ordering over the net unless they have a 1-800 number. I do not order online anymore. Why? These thieves are getting more clever and now they can duplicate a homepage to look JUST LIKE your bank, credit card company, whatever. There will only be a slight difference but by the time you've entered your personal data, tooooooo late.

So I only order from 1-800 numbers.

Me too JJ, I always have used the companies 800 numbers. What amazed me was how real this fake site looked. It will certainly fool some poor person. I feel sorry for them.

Yeah, these fake letters and sites look VERY realistic nowadays. So now whenever I receive an email or phone call from anything havibng to do with money, I call the credit card, bank, debit card customer service numbers directly which I have imprinted on the back of those cards.

I try not to use my debit card for anything anymore, because I understand crooks have a machine which, when pointed at your card, can read the number. Those same devices have been hooked up to ATM machines in order to capture peoples' private information as part of an identity theft racket.

What a world we live in!

sick, isn't it Josie. I try not to think about that stuff, but my rose colored glasses are getting darker.

I heard not long ago, that you should not lock your car with the remote because the technology is available for someone sitting a few cars away in a parking lot to copy the code of your remote. I don't know if that's true - but I do look around to see if there's anyone close by when I exit my car in a parking lot. It is truly getting scary out there.