Don't be misled by 'free' gift card offers Published Sept. 9, 2010 By Richard Brock legal office KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Legal offices across theAir Force are sounding an alarm about new ways to obtain personal information online. While Air Force members are better educated than the average citizen when it comes to detecting attempts to obtain personal information by means of phishing and bogus e-mails, the criminal community remains hard at work, devising improved methods to obtain sensitive personal information. The latest criminal wrinkle involves spoofing network search engines to enable shady individuals to pass themselves off as representing official sites of such brand names as Wal- Mart, Best Buy, McDonalds and Hooters. The scam involves enticing a victim into use of a link which appears related to a known company, but in fact leads the person to a false site unrelated to any major brand. Once there, the visitor is invited to register for a free gift card. The objective is to lure the victim into providing personal information in the registration form which may be used for many purposes -- none of them beneficial to the individual. In most cases, the victim never receives the gift card, or spends more money qualifying for a supposed high value gift card than the actual card is worth. When you're presented with offers which appear to be too good to be true, the best advice is to treat the claims as exactly that. Network pop-up ads which ask for personal and financial information should be treated with extreme skepticism and independently verified by contacting the company in question at its published telephone or network address. For more information, call the legal office, 376-8601.