Don't fall victim to an E-mail scam! Remember, a bank or credit card company will never ask for your account information through an e-mail. As with traditional mail or telephone solicitations, do not give out your credit card information unless you initiate the transaction or unless you are sure the website is a secure website.

Here are some common E-mail scams to watch out for:

Personal information scams (phishing)

These scams, called "phishing", are currently the most popular and thus dangerous form of email fraud. They use email messages that appear to come from a legitimate company such as Garden City Bank, Best Buy, eBay, and PayPal; sometimes they will even appear to have come from the company (e.g., @bestbuy.com , @gardencitybank.com ). They will ask you to go to a web page to "update" or "verify" your information. Sometimes these messages will inform you that your account will be deleted if you do not do this, or they claim that you placed an order or made a charge to your account. By going to the links provided or filling out the form in these email messages, you provide the fraudulent party with your personal and financial information. Whenever you are asked to provide personal or financial information through email or a web form, verify that the source is real by going separately to that organization's web page (do not use the link provided in the email message) and forward a copy of the email message you received to the contact email address you find on the company's web page. Ask the company to verify that the information in the message is legitimate.

Nigerian bank scams

A very common type of email fraud is advance fee fraud schemes. The perpetrators of advance fee fraud (sometimes referred to as Nigerian or foreign bank scams) are often very creative and innovative. This fraud is also called 4-1-9 fraud after the section of the Nigerian penal code that addresses fraud schemes. Nigerian nationals, purporting to be officials of government or banking institutions, will fax or email letters to individuals and businesses in the US and other countries. The correspondence states that a reputable foreign company or individual is needed for the deposit of an overpayment on a procurement contract. Some variations of this scheme have the son or daughter of a murdered official plead for your assistance in depositing an inheritance in a US bank. Individuals are asked to provide funds to cover various fees, and also asked for personal identifiers such as Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, and other similar data. Once this information is received, the victims often find that their bank accounts are emptied. It is hard to pinpoint how much has been lost in these scams since many victims do not report their losses to authorities due to fear or embarrassment.

If you receive this type of message, you may report it to the US Secret Service for its ongoing investigation of this type of fraud; forward the message with full headers to 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov .

Pyramid schemes and Chain Letters

This is a scheme in which a hierarchy is created by people joining under others who joined previously, and in which those who join make payments to those above them in the hierarchy, with the expectation of being able to collect payments from those who join below. These e-mails typically ask you to send $5 - $10 to four or five names on a list and replace one of the names with your own and forward the revised bulk e-mail. Pyramid schemes are prohibited by US law, by the laws of each of the fifty individual states, and by the laws of most other nations. Pyramid schemes are variously defined under these laws either as a form of gambling or as outright fraud.

For more information regarding Spam, check into the following resource: