![]() ![]() If you ever get a message or email that you're tempted to return, ask a friend or relative or co-worker what they think.It's easy to spoof a number or impersonate the phone number of a particular company or person. My skepticism applies even in cases when your caller ID might say the call is coming from XYZ Bank or the IRS or someone you know.(We no longer have a landline, so there's no, "Is Teresa there? Oh, I'll get her," and I don't answer my cell phone with my name.) If I got a phone call I wasn't expecting from someone claiming to be from one of my credit cards or bank accounts or investment firms, I wouldn't even confirm my name.And we shouldn't reply to emails we weren't expecting or click on links in emails out of fear that something bad is going to happen. ![]() ![]() We certainly shouldn't return phone calls we weren't expecting. It's getting to the point where we shouldn't talk to anyone who calls if we weren't expecting the call.It's the threat that the police are coming to arrest us for back taxes, or that our computer is going to blow up because of a virus, or that our grandchild is out of town and needs money, or our bank account is going to be frozen. Bad guys try to get us to put aside our reservations or doubt by saying we have to do something now.(If an old card was compromised in a data breach, we likely canceled it.) What they may not have is our bank account information or the account number of an active credit or debit card. They often have our names, dates of birth, phone numbers and addresses and even our Social Security numbers. Thieves are getting our personal information from all of these data breaches, at entities ranging from Target and Home Depot to Anthem Blue Cross to the IRS, Experian and Scottrade.They typically have just enough information to convince us the person must legit. Thieves often have some of our personal information before they ever contact us by phone or email (or even by U.S. ![]()
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