Phishing Victim

Phishing Victim

What to do if you become a phishing victim

If you suspect that you may have exposed your personal information to an unauthorized individual, you should:

• Reset your exposed passwords.
• Contact the support team of the institutions where your passwords were exposed.
• If you received the e-mail message through your Pacific email address, contact University of the Pacific's Department of Public Safety.
• If the information provided can be used to access other institutions, contact them as well. For example, if your credit card number was exposed, contact your credit card company as well. If any piece of information was exposed that could be used to open financial accounts (e.g., your Social Security Number, date of birth, place of birth, mother's maiden name, bank account numbers, credit card numbers), contact your credit card company or any of the three major credit bureaus and sign up for their credit monitoring service, a fee-based service that will automatically notify you whenever your credit record is accessed. Here are the websites for the three major credit bureaus:
  • Equifax
  • Experian
  • Trans Union
• Contact national agencies dealing with Internet fraud:
  • The Internet Crime Complaint Center
  • Federal Trade Commission