It's embarrassing to admit that I fell for this but I wanted to pass it on and (hopefully) help you guys avoid this problem. I received an e-mail that appeared to be from Apple Itunes regarding a charge that looked suspicious but as my older kids are on the account I wanted to have a closer look. Not knowing our Apple password, I clicked the link on the e-mail ("forgot your password?"), dumbly thinking that it would connect me up to Apple's password reset process. Then I filled out all of the requested information, including my Social Security Number (I know...). It still didn't work. I looked at the bill and it included a VAT charge, so it wasn't from the U.S., and had a European reference in the fine print. I closed the e-mail and suddenly the light bulb illuminated over my head. Really, really stupid! Anyway, I've put a fraud alert on my credit and contacted all three credit reporting agencies to put a freeze on my credit reports (denies access to everyone, so hopefully it will be nearly impossible for any thief to take out a loan in my name and promptly default on it). Next will be the calls to the IRS to prevent anyone falsely claiming my tax refunds. I'll have to carefully monitor all activity related to my credit for quite a while, probably years. I've always considered myself pretty adept at avoiding phishing scams, but I have to admit that this one was pretty convincing. I contacted Apple and they told me that they never ask for social security numbers. But...as a reminder...don't give out your SSN to ANYONE over the internet and over the telephone only to someone who needs to know it that YOU'VE called, not someone calling you. Better yet, try to avoid giving out your SSN to anyone, period.
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