AOL Taught Me Well

Nervousness ran through me when I opened what I feared was a spam email. This innocent appearing notice apparently came from my credit card company stating there was a message for me on my account. The email contained a link to this important information.

Horror of horrors! For years, AOL had warned their members about imbedded email links from our financial companies. An email supposedly from them, but not, was something called fishing or phishing or some such dangerous word. In any case, I sat there for long minutes shaking my head at the idiot sending the email. Did they think I had just fallen off a turnip truck and would fall for this blatant attempt to gain my personal information?

I’m not usually cynical about people and am very trusting. Over the years, though, I’ve been inundated with Nigerian claims offering me millions in exchange for a few dollars. There have even been some emails claiming they were from AOL, but I knew they weren’t because of the lack of official blue envelope. Some may have fallen for this, but I wasn’t an AOL volunteer between 1998 and 2004 for nothing.

In the last couple weeks I’ve received a couple so-called F.B.I. notices. The subject line stating the email was from this government agency, I admit, scared the heck out of me at first. Last year I’d done a ton of research for my erotica novel by going to various porn sites, and I wondered if the F.B.I. was mailing me about that. No, all they wanted was to let me know I still hadn’t responded to the recent emails that they had money for me, and they needed some information to send it to my checking account. Yeah, right!

So, you can understand why I was cynical about the notice from my credit card company with that link embedded in the copy. I did risk my Dell accidentally clicking on the link when I hovered my cursor over it, and it did look legitimate. Still I hesitated. Should I or shouldn’t I click?

Finally, chickening out, I closed the email and hurried to my saved listing of Favorite Places. In this list of hundreds of sites was the link to my credit card company. Earlier in the morning, as was my habit, I had checked my investment portfolios, my checking account balance, and my VISA statement. There was no message on the last at that time, and my cynicism grew about the origin of that email.

After finding the link to my credit card, I opened it while still not believing in the validity of the email with that sneaky link. When I quickly looked on the left side of my account’s home page to check for any messages, there it was, a brand new message just like the email said. What was that important message? It was a polite and helpful warning for customers to periodically update their account’s password.

I still am leery about clicking on links in emails and always will be. This one, at least, was genuine, but the next one might not be.

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My winning entry of 520 words for the following contest:

It Wasn't A Fraud!  (ASR) You were cynical, then pleasantly surprised! Winners! #1674529 by THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!