I have had an Earthlink account for many years. Recently I received an official looking e-mail from "Earthlink Account" with the subject line: "Your Account at EarthLink.com is suspended." The body of the message read as follows:


EarthLink.com - Account suspension alert.

Dear EarthLink.com member,

EarthLink.com Account Management regrets to inform you that your EarthLink.com account has been suspended due to credit card verification problems. Your credit card failed to authorize and as a result, your account has been suspended.

Please take a moment to confirm your account by going to the following address: EarthLink.com/account.cgi

Trully yours, EarthLink.com account management team.

Clicking on the link took me to what looked very much like a legitimate Earthlink website, where I was instructed to fill out a form requesting my username, password, credit card number, home phone and address, social security number and other personal info.

Just to see what would happen, I filled out the form (with totally bogus info, of course). When I clicked on submit, I got a polite message thanking me and informing me that my account had been re-activated, and I was then re-directed to the real Earthlink home page.

The only clue that I had that this was a fraud is that my ISP is Earthlink.net, not "Earthlink.com." That, and I would hope that the real Earthlink support staff know how to spell "truly."

Also, I immediately went to the real Earthlink home page, logged in, and checked my accout status, which was, of course, current and in good standing.

I had heard of a similar scam being perpetrated on AOL subscribers, but this was the first one I had encountered on Earthlink.

Moral: Never give out personal info online unless you are certain who is on the other end. And be careful out there.