Many people using AOL for email have been receiving legitimate looking, but phony emails purporting to be from AOL billing them for services.  Sometimes the phony messages come in the form of phony pop-ups that ask for personal information such as your Social Security number for “verification purposes.”  Either way, these are phony phishing scams merely looking to steal your money and your identity.  Ignore them.

TIPS

AOL uses what it calls AOL Certified Mail for actual communications which will come in the form of a blue envelope in your inbox and will have an AOL seal on the border of the email.  AOL will never ask for your Social Security number although scammers and identity thieves will because this number is the key to identity theft.  If you believe that an email communication from AOL or any other company may or may not be legitimate, go directly to the company at either its website or by telephone making sure that you use URLs and phone numbers that you know are accurate.  Never trust a link in an email that may be phony.  It can only lead to your downloading keystroke logging malware that can steal information from your computer and make you a victim of identity theft.