I thought it was a little odd that my credit card company was calling my business line, but I didn’t worry too much about it.

They needed to update my credit information. That should have been red flag number two; I’d never had a card company say they were going to do that.

But it didn’t even phase me.

I fully believed the guy calling was from my credit card company.

The only reason I didn’t undergo his questioning — which I’m sure would have given him all the information he needed to take my ID and run with it — was because I wasn’t going to give that information to anyone who called me.

That wasn’t a problem, he promised me, all I needed to do was call the number on the back of my card and give them the information they asked for.

Clever bastard.

I wonder how many people changed their minds when he gave them that line. I almost did. I might have if I hadn’t been working on something else at the moment.

Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) my credit card company didn’t know anything about “updating my credit information.” It was just a “vishing” scam.

I don’t consider myself especially gullible. I guess he just caught me on the right day. Or almost caught me.

The No. 1 rule of preventing ID theft is not to give out your information to unsolicited callers. Luckily I followed that one.

You don’t need me to give you any other tips to prevent ID theft. They’re all over the Internet. I just wanted to throw out another warning. Because they almost got me.