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It was very scary. I felt very helpless. I did not know who had taken my money!

If they have your name, your date of birth and your Social Security number, they are well on their way to getting the tools they need to steal you of your identity and rack up thousands of dollars of debt in your name.

My phishing attack happened in January 2004—

Clever conmen are literally phishing for this information via email and on the internet.

I received an email from what I thought was my bank asking me to fill out security information as what they said—

Do not give out your date of birth, do not give out your social security number, do not give out your phone number.

An identity thief who really wants this information and who is willing to work for it can probably get it, but they are not thieves because they want to work hard, they are after easy money and the problem is that many people make themselves easy targets by volunteering this information.

I responded and I filled out my password, my pin number, my mother's maiden name—sensitive information about my bank account under the impression that I was protecting myself. The next day when I went to the bank to withdraw money, I saw that over $1600.00 of my account or just about all the money that I had in my bank account was missing.

So be very careful about what you do online because what you say can be used against you.

Make sure that an internet merchant or the bank that you are doing business with is legitimate.

Check your credit report once a year to be sure that the accounts reflected there are really yours.

Some people have been caught for literally years trying to fix the misinformation.

You will be surprised just how many credit reports contain errors, some of them put there by people who are trading on your good name!

And the way you can avoid that trap is if you become the unfortunate victim, act immediately. Cancel all of your credit cards and put a fraud watch on them. Put the brakes on it immediately to minimize the headaches that will come down the road and contact the Federal Trade Commission 1-877-IDTHEFT.

It was very scary. I felt very helpless. I did not know who had taken my money! If they have your name, your date of birth and your Social Security number, they are well on their way to getting the tools they need to steal you of your identity... click to read more