One of the hazards of the Internet is “phishing.”
It is a criminal effort to get you to go to what looks like a legitimate site and input information such as credit cards.
There are several ways to protect yourself:
1. If it looks fishy, it almost certainly is.
2. Look at the link you are supposed to click on. Mouseover to see the actual link. It should match what it claims to be. Look at the domain name. It is only the last part of the domain that counts. “bankofamerica.phishy-site.com” the domain is “phishy-site.com” – NOT “bankofamerica.com”.
3. There are now various checking services built into web browsers and security software that will warn you if a site is suspicious or a known attack site. Some of these such as Norton SafeWeb even work in Google search engine results pages.
There are a lot of criminals out there. It isn’t hard to avoid getting caught by a scam. Just stay alert.