Gail Eddy, Nederland. The scammers are getting better and better. The text of the email looks legit; the email address looks legit; the graphics are professional. How can you tell when your phone company is contacting you vs. when a scammer is impersonating your phone company?

A client received this email last week and gave us a call.

Everything looked good on the email that she forwarded to me. I hovered over all of the links to see what website they actually pointed to. I looked at the logos, and they actually looked like the real ones. A quick search shows that both “Digital Vault” and “@Ease” are real CenturyLink services. Even the deadline, almost three months in the future, seemed like a legitimate phone company corporation deadline.

The only trouble was that our client had no recollection of signing up for a CenturyLink cloud based storage or “Digital Vault”.

She said that she was going to call CenturyLink about this and I urged her to call a number that she already had, rather than any phone numbers included in the email.

So that’s my advice this week - If you receive an email from a company you have a business relationship with, AND, you’re not expecting an email from then, give them a call on a number you already have saved for them.

Chris Eddy of Geek For Hire, Inc. has been providing computer service to families and small businesses with Mac’s and PC’s for the past fourteen years. His company is highly rated by both the BBB (Better Business Bureau) and by Angie’s List. You can find more at www.GeekForHireInc.com. Geek For Hire, Inc. provides onsite service to the Denver / Boulder / Front Range area. They can provide remote service throughout North America.