Along with all the wonderful things brought to us by the Internet, a few terrible things have developed as well. Think: spam and scams.

Crooks, some of them very sophisticated, have developed ways of relieving us of our money and, worse, our financial identities through Internet trickery. One racket has come to be called "phishing." A message is designed that looks like it came from a large company−perhaps a bank, perhaps a stock brokerage, perhaps a dot-com firm like eBay. In rather urgent terms, the message asks us to help the company check and update its records. Please, the message says, fill in the following.

And included in "the following" are such items as social security number, PINs, and other very private and important personal financial codes. If you provide these numbers, you are likely to lose a great deal of money and, very possibly, your creditworthiness, not to mention a lot of sleep.

When should you send such figures through the mail? Almost never. Be completely certain you have checked out the company involved. Call the bank or stock brokerage or whatever. See if the request is legitimate. (If it asks for PINs and social security numbers, you can rest assured that it isn't.) And reported suspected phishermen to www.ftc.gov. For real estate assistance call Beth at (425) 450-5208 and visit her website at www.bethbillington.com.

Beth Billington is a Realtor® with Coldwell Banker Bain in Bellevue, WA.