Email is not a safe way to communicate sensitive personal information. Just ask Hillary Clinton!
Email is not secure for the vast majority of us. You send email from your computer that may or may not be protected with anti-virus software. It goes out to the internet and a copy is saved on your email provider and another is saved on your recipient’s email provider server. We are going to assume that the email providers have software setup to help protect against viruses. Now the recipient goes to open the email. Are they opening it on their work computer, home computer, tablet, phone or other device? Is any or all of these possible devices running virus software? It is a good chance that they are not. Now the email you sent with your credit card information and social security number are being transferred to a malicious user’s server where they data is harvested and sold or put on dark message boards where anyone can have access to the information.
This is where identity theft comes in!
You are now getting notices that your credit card has been used to make purchases that you did not make. Or worse, your social security number is used to open new accounts or drain your bank account. This is a very bad thing. In today’s society, there is no reason to send this or any other kind of sensitive data over email. NONE! If they tell you this is the only way. I would suggest to stop doing business with this vendor because they are putting you and everyone else at risk.
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