Phishing scams often take the form of emails that you receive that appear to be legitimate and require you to click on a link contained in the email for various reasons which also may appear legitimate.  However, in the case of phishing emails, if you click on the link, you will only succeed in doing one of two things, both of which are bad.  In one type of email, you will be taken to another page where you will be prompted to provide personal information which will then be used to make you a victim of identity theft.  The second bad thing that can happen if you click on a link in a phishing email is that by clicking on the link, you will unwittingly download keystroke logging malware that can steal all of the information from your computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet or other device and use that information to make you a victim of identity theft.

Here is a phishing email that is presently being sent that purports to be from America Online (AOL), but it is not.  It is a phishing scam.  DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK.

Your two incoming mails were placed on pending status due to the recent upgrade to our database,
In order to receive the messages Click here to login and wait for responds from Aol Team.
We apologies for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.
Regards, Aol Team.

TIPS

There are a couple of telltale signs that this is a scam.  People receiving this email do not have their name appear in the salutation and if you click on the details section of your email, you will see that the email did not come from AOL, but instead came from a botnet which is a network of zombie computers taken over by hackers to spread this type of material.  Check the archives of Scamicide or “50 Ways to Protect Your Identity in a Digital Age” for more information about botnets.

In any event, as I have told you many times, even if you think the email is legitimate, you should never click on a link in an email unless you are absolutely sure that it is, in fact, legitimate.  Because you can never be sure who is actually sending you an email, if you are an AOL subscriber who has the slightest thought that this email might be legitimate, call AOL at a customer service number that you know is accurate to confirm that it is merely a scam.