CLEARFIELD – The Clearfield Borough Police Department is warning area residents of a recent scam.
According to police several local consumers have reported receiving fraudulent emails that are supposedly from Visa. These emails request that you “Reactivate your card” or that you are required to sign up for “Verified by Visa” by a certain date or you will no longer be able to make online purchases.
If the recipient responds to the message by clicking on the link provided it would take them to a fraudulent Web site that resembles an authentic Visa site. Any information provided by the cardholder would then be sent to the people committing the fraud and unauthorized charges would begin appearing on the compromised card.
The key things to distinguish these emails as fraudulent are:
-Visa never requests personal information via email.
-The submission forms requests things that Visa does not ask for or would not need to ask for such as the customer’s PIN.
-The messages are addressed generically as “Dear Cardholder.” Authentic messages from Visa would be personalized with the recipient’s name.
Police ask that residents be careful if they receive such a message and not to respond.
For more information about identity theft and credit cards, visit here.