'Vishing' scams use your telephone to hook you

Vishing is new and expected to grow. “In the last few weeks, we’ve seen increased attacks,” says Symantec’s Rosenkrantz. “We’ve seen attacks on local and national banks, as well as some online companies.”

Cloudmark’s O’Donnell also expects vishing to take off. “Once a con artist figures out a new way to pull off a scam, it tends to spread very quickly,” he says.

PayPal is one of the big companies being targeted. Sara Bettencourt, a company spokesperson, reminds customers that PayPal “will never ask for your full credit card number or account information via an automated system.”

If you receive one of these bogus PayPal emails you can forward it to

Bad guys are tech savvy
Internet telephone service makes it simple for scammers to get started and harder for them to be detected.  It’s very easy to establish a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone number very quickly without all the same verification that’s required with traditional phone line.

“You can be in Russia and get a local area code phone number in Seattle very quickly,” Rosenkrantz explains. Victims who call that “local” number have no idea they’re being routed to a distant location via the Internet.

“Use your common sense,” advises Patti Poss, an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission. “What would you do if you were on the street and someone came up to you and asked for your credit card number? You wouldn’t do that!”

Likewise, you should never respond to an unsolicited email that asks for personal information. Don’t click a link. Don’t call a phone number.

If you want to find out if an email from a company you do business with is legitimate, contact them in a way you know is safe. If you call, use the phone number on your account statement. If you go to their Web site, type the URL in the address bar yourself; don’t click a hyperlink.

Before you share any personal information, stop and verify. Because if you do give it up to a con artist, it’s gone, and there’s no way to get it back.

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