Illustration: Stuart Bradford
Barbara Head, a stay-at-home mother of three in Mocksville, North
Carolina, was checking her e-mail and saw a notice from AOL saying she needed
to update her account information. It looked legit, so she followed the link.
But she ended up handing her personal and financial information to a phishing
scammer, who then assumed her identity and rang up hundreds of dollars in
charges with her PayPal account, which was linked to her credit union checking
account. Among other things, the criminal set up a fake business using her
initials (B&H Enterprise) to conduct transactions in her name. That action,
though not common, lent credibility to the thief.
Head discovered the fraudulent activity after receiving overdraft notices from the credit union, and spent countless hours over six months clearing her name and credit history. The only positive note: She caught the thief that got her.
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