I would like to second (third?) Diana's and Tacit's comments - credit card companies, Paypal, eBay and the like DO NOT, in my experience ask you to "reconfirm", "reregister" "reactivate" or anything else online, via an email sent to your email address. If your credit card company has issues with you or your account you'll be hearing from them by phone (in the case of suspected fraud on your credit card account) or via snail mail.
Some info on various scams and how to spot them/avoid them
AOL/Phishing scamFTC's "How Not to Get Hooked by a 'Phishing' ScamFBI Alert about debit card scamEBay's Fraud Info pageMBNA/eBay credit card offer infoI have twice in the recent past been victim of credit card fraud - the first (and isolated instance) involved a gas station attendant or employee, who not only stole my credit card number and but was dumb enough to use it at the
same gas station. Since I live in MA and the gas station was one I went to exactly ONCE in Scarborough, Ontario, 6 months earlier, it was pretty easy to identify the source of the fraud. He/she also used it once more at a restaurant. I reported it to the Metropolitan Toronto police, but doubt they ever did a thing about it - it's small potatoes in their books. The second incident was also easily traceable, and I did all the "detective" work - the police here in North Andover just plain plumb aren't experienced enough in this sort of fraud. I had used my credit card, online, to order checks for our school PTO. They were delivered to the school, rather than to my address. This was the only time that this credit card was used with this address. I got two calls from online camera dealers to verify that I had "ordered" expensive digital cameras - with the school's address used as my
home address. The cameras, of course, were to be delivered elsewhere - a Mailboxes Etc. in midtown Manhattan that the NYC police were already watching. I talked to the NYC police detective and he told me that much of the credit card fraud of this sort was being conducted by the NY & NJ Russian mafia. My last call was to the company where I had ordered the checks - to alert them to the fact that they had someone on staff who was obviously stealing credit card numbers. The first person I spoke to put me through to their billing department. Of course, the man I spoke to there denied any possibility of wrongdoing in his company.
And guess what sort of an accent he had?I gave all the information I'd gathered to both the police here and the NYC police - not sure if anyone was ever caught as a result, but at least I tried! The other fraudulent charges on my card were for online porn - when I called to have those charges reversed, the woman in the billing department told me that they get this sort of thing all the time!
This is all part of the huge upsurge in identity theft of all kinds, much of it enabled by the internet, though rarely perpetrated by the employees of legitimate online businesses. This is where people get confused, I find - many people, including my mother, are afraid of shopping online - not realizing that the fraud they read about is NOT generally as a
result of shopping at legitimate, well-established online businesses with excellent security systems. The online fraud happens AFTER the thieves have obtained your credit card number - usually through methods which have nothing to do with your shopping, and may be as primitive as stealing your mail from your mailbox - after which they have a field day buying things online at your expense, using your credit card number.
After having my wallet stolen a couple of years ago, I had a fraud alert placed on my credit reports, which prevents anyone (including me) for applying for instant credit. All credit applications must be confirmed by me at my home phone number. In looking up the availability of this option, I discovered that my alert may have expired, but it is something worth considering to help prevent identity theft.
http://www.fightidentitytheft.com/flag.html
