Ridgewood Police Caution against “Phishing” identity scams
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Police continue to caution against identity theft . On Saturday November 7, 2015 a Stevens Avenue resident reported a suspicious incident that occurred via the internet. He/she was notified via email that there was a problem with his/her credit card account leading them to a link requesting his/her account information.
Prior to providing his/her personal information the resident realized that the notification was in fact fraudulent. This is a common scheme for perpetrating identity theft crimes, do not provide your personal account information to anyone before positively verifying the identity of the entity requesting it. Fraudulent sites camouflage themselves in order to trick potential victims into believing that they are legitimate.
This is often called ; Phishing . Phishing is when internet fraudsters impersonate a business to trick you into giving out your personal information, it’s called phishing. Don’t reply to email, text, or pop-up messages that ask for your personal or financial information. Don’t click on links within them either – even if the message seems to be from an organization you trust. It isn’t. Legitimate businesses don’t ask you to send sensitive information through insecure channels.