Doing Business in the Age of Phishing, Spoofing, and Identity Theft
17 May 2010When you are really good at what you do, others try to figure out how you do it, in hopes that mimicry will also bring them success. After all, as the old adage says, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” [Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon,1820.] Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous individuals who only plan to get ahead by looking for shortcuts and cheating those who are vulnerable or unsuspecting. Often they do this by pretending to be something they are not. We have seen phishing schemes going on for years.
Then there’s the issue of “spoofing,” when a fake website is set up to resemble one owned by a successful business, in an attempt – all too often successful – to harvest personal information, credit card and bank account numbers, and other sensitive information from unsuspecting customers of the real, legitimate business they intended to deal with. How many times have you typed in a domain name, only to have the wrong website come up? Sometimes a fraudulent website is only a false keystroke or two away from the name of the legitimate site you were looking for. It pays to be careful, and to verify that the website you’re dealing with is the one you intended to deal with.
Sad to say, even the legal marketplace can harbor traps for the unwary. Sometimes people claim to be attorneys when they are not, or claim to be affiliated with a famous law firm, in the hope of cashing in on someone else’s success. More than a few people have been victimized by fraudsters in this way. How can you protect yourself? Make sure you have the correct contact information by crosschecking the information in several sources. For instance, you could call directory information to get the phone number straight from the phone company, then you could call for further information.
At the Murthy Law Firm, we have worked for years to build our reputation for outstanding immigration legal services, and we are proud of all we have achieved. We encourage you to take extra steps to ensure the professionals you engage for your financial, domestic, or even your legal work are, in fact, from the company they claim to be and that they hold the credentials you need. As of this writing, there is only ONE office for the Murthy Law Firm, which is located in Owings Mills, Maryland. Our contact information is readily available on our website, as is a current listing of our attorneys. Our ONLY affiliate office, Murthy Immigration Services, Pvt. Ltd., is located in Chennai, India.
Readers are also cautioned to beware of web postings that claim to quote MurthyDotCom articles in whole or in part. Other websites or forums may quote selectively, or add their own material and thereby distort the information they claim to be verbatim. Protect yourself. Don’t put stock in secondhand information. Get the real story on immigration, directly, from a trusted source: MurthyDotCom. The MurthyBlog and MurthyDotCom are the ONLY official sites for information from the Murthy Law Firm. By sticking to these sites, you can be sure that the information has been carefully researched. A little bit of due diligence can protect you from big problems. As another famous saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”