Fake Credit Report Sites:
Cashing in on Your Personal Information
You may have seen Web
sites or received unsolicited email offering
credit reports, sometimes for free. Be aware
that some of these online operators may
not actually provide credit reports, but
may be using these sites as a way to capture
your personal information. From there, they
may sell your information to others who
may use it commit fraud, including identity
theft.
This is a variation on
"phishing," also called "carding,"
a high-tech scam that uses spam or fraudulent
Web sites to deceive consumers into disclosing
their credit card numbers, bank account
information, Social Security numbers, passwords,
and other sensitive information.
The Federal Trade Commission
(FTC), the nation's consumer protection
agency, urges you to take the following
precautions when visiting sites or responding
to email that offer credit reports:
If you get an email offering a credit
report, don't reply or click on the link
in the email. Instead, contact the company
cited in the email using a telephone number
or Web site address you know
to be genuine.
Be skeptical of unsolicited email offering
credit reports. Keep an eye out for email
from an atypical address, like XYZ123@website.net,
or an email address ending in a top level
domain other than .com, like .ru or .de.
Check whether the company has a working
telephone number and legitimate address.
You can check addresses at Web sites like
www.switchboard.com,
and phone numbers through reverse lookup
search engines like www.anywho.com.
Check for misspellings and grammatical
errors. Silly mistakes and sloppy copy
- for example, an area code that doesn't
match an address - often are giveaways
that the site is a scam. Look at the company's
Web address: is it a real company's address
or it is a misspelled version of a legitimate
company's Web address?
Check to see whether the email address
matches the Web site address. That is,
when you enter the company's Web address
into the browser, does it go to the sender's
site or re-direct you to a different Web
address? If it re-directs you, that's
a red flag that you should cease the transaction.
Find out who owns the Web site by using
a "Whois" search such as the
search at www.networksolutions.com.
Exit from any Web site that asks for
unnecessary personal information, like
a Personal Identification Number (PIN)
for your bank account, the three-digit
code on the back of your credit card,
or your passport number and issuing country.
Legitimate sites don't ask for this information.
All legitimate sites will want to verify
who you are, and will respond to an electronic
request for a credit report by asking
you for an additional piece of information.
If a site does not ask a follow-up question,
the site is almost certainly a fake.
Use only secure Web sites. Look for
the "lock" icon on the browser's
status bar, and the phrase "https"
in the URL address for a Web site, to
be sure your information is secure during
transmission. All real sites are secure.
Watch your mailbox and credit card
statements: If you've responded to a bogus
site, you may never receive the credit
report they offered for free. If you paid
one of these sites for a credit report,
your credit card may never be charged.
If you find that you have unauthorized
charges, contact your financial institutions
and credit card issuers immediately.
Report suspicious activity to the FTC
and the U.S. Secret Service. Send the
actual spam to the Los Angeles Electronic
Crimes Task Force at LA.ECTF.reports@usss.dhs.gov
and to the FTC at spam@uce.gov.
If you believe you've been scammed, file
your complaint at www.ftc.gov,
and then visit the FTC's Identity Theft
Web site (www.consumer.gov/idtheft)
to learn how to minimize your risk of
damage from identity theft.
For More Information
and to Complain
For a copy of your credit
report from the major credit bureaus, contact:
The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive
and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information
to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a
complaint or to get free
information on consumer issues, visit www.ftc.gov
or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The
FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related
complaints into
Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil
and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.
Consumers
also can call their local office of the Secret Service.