Which of the following can assure them that they are using the retailers authentic website and not an imposters look alike site that will steal their credit card details?

Don't Get Scammed

ComEd cares about your safety. We regularly receive reports of individuals posing as ComEd employees. We want to help you be better informed and avoid being the victim of a scam or energy-related fraud.

These imposters may contact you and falsely claim that your electric service will be disconnected unless payment is made. They may instruct you to buy a prepaid credit card and call back to a different phone number with the personal identification number (PIN) or other personal information. They also use a tactic called “spoofing” to manipulate the Caller ID displayed phone number so that it appears as a ComEd number.

Report a Scam

What You Should Know

We will never call or come to your home or business to:

  • Sell you electricity
  • Ask for immediate payment with a prepaid cash card, third-party banking app like Cash App, Zelle, Venmo, QuickPay, or cryptocurrency such as bitcoin
  • Ask for your account number or other personal information such as Social Security Number or Tax Identification Number
  • Ask to see your energy bill

ComEd never collects payments at kiosks that issue prepaid cash cards or cryptocurrency such as bitcoin.

How you can recognize a ComEd employee:

A ComEd field employee may knock on your door if we are unable to access our equipment, like the meter or pedestal transformer. You can identify a ComEd employee by:

  • Uniform - all ComEd field employees wear a uniform with the ComEd logo, including a shirt and safety vest
  • ID - employees will be wearing a ComEd ID badge with their name and ComEd listed

To confirm that someone is really a ComEd employee, call 1-800-EDISON-1 (1-800-334-7661) before engaging with the person.

We also ask customers to be wary about sharing the following information:

  • ComEd account number
  • Passwords to your accounts
  • Information on your last payment
  • Social Security number
  • A copy of your energy bill

Please be aware of cyber-security threats:

  • Carefully review messages originating from outside your organization's network.
  • Check the name of the sender and business in the email and make sure it matches the name and business in the email address. Look for misspellings and zeros in place of the letter O.
  • If you don't recognize the sender, call the individual or business directly to verify the message is legitimate. Use a phone number from your own records or the company's official website and not the number provided in the email.
  • Confirm the contents of the email look legitimate especially when a request can impact your business, such as transferring money.
  • Hover over website links before clicking to confirm the legitimacy of the site.

If at any time you are uncomfortable, or you feel you are experiencing suspicious behavior, call

1-800-EDISON-1 (1-800-334-7661).

Report Phone Scams

If you believe you have been the target of a phone scam, ComEd urges you to contact the Illinois Attorney General’s office at 1-800-386-5438(TTY 1-800-964-3013), or visit the Illinois Attorney General's website and select the “Protecting Consumers” link.

Video Transcript

 

Report Identity Theft

If you believe your identity has been stolen and a ComEd account has been opened in your name, you may make a claim regarding the fraudulent activity by filling out an affidavit.

Identity Theft Affidavit (pdf)

Please mail or fax completed forms to:

ComEd
ATTN: Revenue Management
P.O. Box 2550
Chicago, IL 60690-2550

Fax: 1-630-684-2888

En español | The share of shopping that consumers do online has been growing for years, and the coronavirus pandemic sent the trend into hyperdrive. Ecommerce sales topped $870 billion in 2021, an increase of more than 50 percent from 2019, according to retail research firm Digital Commerce 360.

Cybercriminals are keeping pace. Online purchasing is the most common scam type reported to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), accounting for 37 percent of complaints to the BBB's Scam Tracker in 2021, and the riskiest, with 3 in 4 victims reporting a monetary loss. An AARP-sponsored study by Javelin Strategy & Research found that 29 percent of consumers ages 50 and over have been stung by online shopping scams.

The typical shopping scam starts with a bogus website, mobile app or, increasingly, a social media ad (a BBB study found that 40 percent of online shopping scams reported to the organization originate on Facebook or Instagram).

Some faux e-stores are invented from whole cloth, but many mimic trusted retailers, with familiar logos and slogans and a URL that’s easily mistaken for the real thing. They offer popular items at a fraction of the usual cost and promise perks like free shipping and overnight delivery, exploiting the premium online shoppers put on price and speed.

Some of these copycats do deliver merchandise — shoddy knockoffs worth less than even the “discount” price advertised as a once-in-a-lifetime deal on, say, Tiffany watches or Timberland boots. More often, you’ll wait in vain for your purchase to arrive. 

And your losses might not stop there: Scammers may seed phony sites, apps, or links in pop-up ads and email coupons with malware that infects your device and harvests personal information for use in identity theft.

Not surprisingly, these frauds flourish during the holiday season, and during major shopping events such as Amazon's Prime Day. These seasonal super sales bring a plethora of deceptive ads, phishing messages and lookalike shopping sites, the BBB warns.

 A November 2020 AARP survey found that while 72 percent of U.S. consumers are concerned about the security of their personal and financial information when buying something online, only 15 percent could correctly answer at least 7 of 10 true/false questions about safe shopping practices. You need not forgo the ease and endless selection of online shopping, but take precautions to make sure you get what you pay for.

Warning Signs

  • Bargain-basement prices. Internet security firm Norton says to be on guard if discounts exceed 55 percent.
  • Shoddy website design or sloppy English. Real retailers take great care with their online presentation.
  • Limited or suspicious contact options — for example, they only have a fill-in contact form, or the customer-service email is a Yahoo or Gmail account, not a corporate one.
  • URLs with extraneous words or characters (most stores use only their brand name in web addresses) or unusual domains — for example, .bargain, .app or a foreign domain instead of .com or .net.

About the Fraud Watch Network

Whether you have been personally affected by scams or fraud or are interested in learning more, the AARP Fraud Watch Network advocates on your behalf and equips you with the knowledge you need to feel more informed and confidently spot and avoid scams.

Which of the following can assure them that they are using the retailer's authentic website and not an imposter's look alike site that will steal their credit card details?

Which of the following can assure them that they are using the retailer's authentic website and not an imposter's look-alike site that will steal their credit card details? Digital certificate.

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BitLocker Device Encryption uses the XTS-AES 128-bit encryption method.

Which Encryption is a chip on the motherboard of a computer that provides cryptographic services quizlet?

A Hardware Security Module (HSM) is essentially a chip on the motherboard of the computer that provides cryptographic services.

Which technique added to cryptographic algorithms can change a single character of plaintext into multiple characters of ciphertext?

Diffusion means that changing a single character of the input will change many characters of the output.