How to Detect Phishing Spam

Because identity theft has become such a serious problem in this day and age, it is vitally important for you to be very proactive in protecting yourself from becoming a victim of identity theft. To this end, it is important that you be able to detect phishing spam.

Through this article, you will be provided with some helpful and useful tips on how you can go about detecting phishing spam. By understanding the tips and suggestions presented for you in this article about detecting phishing spam, you will be in a far better position of protecting yourself from an identity theft scheme.

The phishing spam email usually will be designed to look as if it is being sent by a reputable entity -- a bank, Internet merchant or some other business with a good reputation. Phishing spam continues to be a serious problem on the Internet and World Wide Web at this point in time and is expected to be a serious problem into the future as well.

A phishing spam email that purports to be from a bona fide entity will not have the actual address of that entity. The return address on the email may look like it is coming from a bona fide and reputable entity, but if you look closely, you will see that this is not the case.

Let’s take, for example, a scam email that allegedly has been sent by eBay. The website address for eBay is eBay.com. Email that actually comes from email will bear the return address that will include, simply, eBay.com. A phishing spam email will have more included in the return address. While it may be made to look like the eBay address, when you examine the return address, you will see it is not. For example, rather than being from eBay.com, it actually will come from something like info.eBay.com@yahoo.com. Check out the email address closely.

A legitimate email from a reputable company or financial institution will instruct you to log into the company’s website like you do any other time when you access that company’s website. A bona fide email from a business with which you have an established reputation understands the dangers associated with identity theft in this day and age. Thus, they are going to make certain that you access the company’s website directly and not merely through a link in an email.

Never -- never -- respond to a request for information in an email that is sent to you by clicking on the link that is contained in the email.