Identity theft is a huge criminal business online. Crooks

obtain your personal information and use it to gain access to your bank

accounts, your online shopping accounts, or they setup new credit cards using your

name.

You may think that it could not happen to you but it can happen

without you ever knowing until it is too late and the collection agency or

worse, the police are pounding on your door.

You may mistakenly think that identity theft results from

hackers breaking into computers. Actually, hacking into a company computer to

obtain useful information is very rare. It is extremely difficult to hack into

a computer. It requires a great deal of specialized knowledge and it takes a

lot of time. Professional criminals do not waste their time on scams that are

difficult or have no guaranteed results. Professional criminals will go after

victims directly. They know they can obtain personal information from you much more

easily than hacking a computer database.

Criminals have devised a number of methods to steal your

information, but they all come down to basic psychology. The criminals setup

elaborate trips to trick you into giving up your information freely and

willingly. They send out millions of phishing emails. These emails are Fishing for information. The emails may offer fake jobs, they may appear to be from legitimate companies,

companies you trust.

You may have received an email that appeared to be from your

bank, PayPal, eBay, Amazon.com, or any other name you know and trust. Criminals

can easily make fake look-alike emails that look exactly like the real company emails.

These fake emails then lead you to a spoof website which looks and works

exactly like the real website but there is one major difference! This spoof

site is run by a criminal.

When you type in your bank password, your PayPal password,

your eBay password, or any other information, you are giving it to a criminal.

The criminal will then log into your PayPal account or bank account and

transfer out as much money as they can, then use your

account to scam other people. They will login to your eBay account and sell

expensive items, collect the money and disappear leaving you holding the bag

and trying to explain to detectives why they should not arrest you.

The old advice about checking for your real name in the

email or verifying the email address in these phishing messages no longer

works. More industrious criminals are now using eBay and other sites to collect

basic information like your name and email address and sending customized

phishing emails which sometimes look more convincing than the real emails.

Some websites only want to obtain your name and phone

number. They will then have criminal associates call you and offer loans, claim

you have won a contest, ask for a donation to charity, claim they are with the

police or a major company, or anything else they think will trick you into

giving them your credit card number or personal information by phone. Even if

you are very careful online, these scammers can sound very convincing and even

fake Caller ID information to make themselves look legitimate. They collect

only basic information online and go for the real illegal payoff by phone or

mail.

Fortunately there is a solution to the problem which is

free, easy, and will protect you from not only phishing sites, but thousands of

other known fraudulent sites on the Internet. The My Little Mole Toolbar has

more than a cutsie name and logo going for it. This

is a free toolbar that works with Internet Explorer or Firefox to warn you if

you are tricked into going to one of these spoof websites or a known fraudulent

website.  The software pops up a warning

if you go to a known crooked website so you immediately know if you are in

danger.

The toolbar also has built in search features which allow it

to replace several other toolbars. It has a built in search box for Google, eBay,

and Amazon. I know those are the three sites I search the most. It also allows eBay

and Amazon users to select which country’s website to search so it is internationally

friendly.

There are anti-phishing features built into Internet

Explorer, but according to Michael Ford, the toolbar designer, "The IE anti-phishing

feature is useless. It depends on people reporting phishing

sites which means thousands of people can be scammed before it is

disabled. My Little Mole will warn you every time and does not depend on anyone

reporting anything. It is completely automatic. IE also does not warn about the

thousands of other known fraudulent sites that are only setup to steal credit

card numbers or other information.  The

same is true with any anti-phishing/anti-virus software I have seen. They simply

do not work to protect the user until thousands have been scammed. I have seen

some scam sites that have been active for months with no one else warning about

them but My Little Mole."

Mr. Ford went on to say that the My Little Mole toolbar uses

an intelligent fingerprinting system which will catch fraudulent sites even if

they move to a new domain, and even if they change their site completely, it

will usually still warn the viewer before they enter any information they

should not.

This toolbar could also end spam as we know it.

According to Mr. Ford, the toolbar designer, "The problem

with other anti-spam efforts has been in trying to stop the spam email itself.

I want to take away the profit motive and make spam unprofitable. When anyone

goes to a dishonest website that advertises by spam, or a scam site that is

only setup to steal credit card numbers or personal information, they will

receive a warning telling them not to use the site. If crooks cannot make money

sending spam, then they will stop because it becomes a waste of time for them."

I cannot stress how important this toolbar is for every

Internet user. If it only prevents you from being scammed once, or having your

identity stolen once, it is more than worth the price which is FREE!

You can download this free toolbar at www.MyLittleMole.com