Today’s scam of the day is another that comes right from my email.  Earlier this week I received an eamil that appeared to come from Capital One with a short message that read “There is a new document available online for your account” and instructed me to click on a link to get to the document.  If I had done so I would have downloaded a virus, possibly a keystroke logging malware program that could steal all of the information from my computer.

TIPS

Although the forged email looked quite legitimate and carried the logo of Capital One, at closer look there were some clues that this was a scam starting with the fact that it addressed me as “Dear Customer.”  Any email from a company that does not use your name should immediately make you skeptical.  In addtion, the scammer who copied the four paragraphs of fine print found at the bottom of legitimate emails from Capital One neglected to take out the email address to which the original email was sent so the email to me indicates that it was being sent to a different address than mine which was another tell tale clue.  The bottom line is that you should never click on links regardless of from whom they come unless you are absolutely sure they are legitimate.  Just to be extra sure I sent a copy of the email to Capital One who promptly responded to me that the email I had been sent was a scam.