Phishing Awareness

You’ve likely heard the term “phishing” in the news. Phishing is a type of scam where someone reaches out and attempts to get personal information from you. These scammers may identify themselves as your bank, a shipping service, a shopping site, or even your job.

Phishing scams may show up as the following: 

• email

• text

• phone/voicemail

• social media messages

Instead of opening or responding to these types of messages - we encourage you to contact the company/entity directly and make sure that is a communication that they sent you.

At Bonanza, we work hard to prioritize your safety from phishing scams. Bonanza won’t reach out to a user through Bmail (Bonanza’s internal messaging system) and request they reply with the following information -
 

• Your social security number

• Your banking information (bank account, credit/debit card, etc)

• Your tax identification number

• Your driver’s license or state ID

• Your birth certificate

All personal and financial information will be collected using safe, encrypted site tools within the seller dashboard. To put it simply, encryption is the process of converting sensitive information into code. This process is meant to prevent unauthorized access to your personal information.

When your credit card information is submitted to Bonanza, it travels to us over a high-security 256-bit encryption protocol. After the credit card is verified, all credit card information is stored in a secure offsite card vault that has been specifically architected for the highest security possible.

Bonanza then stores a token by which to refer to your card, so that our credit card processor can match our token to your card data without transferring the card data itself. This procedure is compliant with credit card PCI (Payment Card Industry) Security Standard Council regulations which describe how to keep card information maximally secure from fraud.

We encourage you to continue learning about phishing scams as they are becoming more and more sophisticated. Here are a few resources for you to consider reviewing -

• How to Recognize and Avoid Phishing Scams - Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

• Phishing: Spot and report scam emails, texts, websites and calls - National Cyber Security Centre

• Phishing scams - American Banking Association

• Report Phishing and online scams - IRS

When in doubt - contact [email protected] so we can verify Bonanza communications for you.