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Oh Eva! It is a most definitely a phising scam. But don’t beat yourself up over it, a lot of people fall for them otherwise the scammers would stop doing them. But take action now!

No credit card company will ever send you an email with an attachment to download or ask you via email to verify your personal information or account information. NEVER! But since you opened the email and clicked on the link and started filling out the form, run an anti-virus and anti-spyware scan on your computer - stat! If you don’t have any, let me know, I can point you toward some free scanners like AVG and Malwarebites.

Also contact Amex right now and I mean right now! Tell them you received a phishing email and started to respond to it before realizing what it was. Ask them to cancel your account number, put a hold on all transactions and reissue you a new card number – stat! Seriously. Do it now! Right now! Also ask the customer service rep to put you in touch with their fraud department. The fraud department may want you to forward the email to them but as soon as you do, delete it.

After running a good anti-virus and anti-spyware scan on your computer, change all your online account passwords. I would also contact my bank and ask for a new debit card with a new PIN number just to be safe.

Here is some good info on phishing scams and how to avoid them:

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/phisher-scams.html

Keep in mind that if there was suspected fraudulent transactions on your Amex card, they would have called you personally to verify them and not via an email. But they would never ask you to provide your password or PIN, security question answers or any other personal information save for perhaps your billing zip code and the last 4 digits of your account number or SSN for verification that they reached the correct person. But just to be safe, if you do get a call from someone saying that they are from your cc company or bank, it is better to tell the caller that you will call back then call the phone number on the back of your card or credit card statement.

My credit card company called me about a year ago to ask if a suspicious transaction was valid, it wasn’t. It was for some online sporting goods store in CA for $1 (credit card thieves will often try to put through a small $ amount to test before charging big $ items). My cc company didn’t need to ask me for my personal information as they already had it. But just to be safe, I asked for a reference number and immediately called them back on the phone on the back of my cc.

I also made some purchases at Target during the breach period. My cc company did send me an email alert with some general information about what I needed to do but it also instructed me to directly log on to my account for further instructions (and they also mailed me a letter), the email did not have a link to log on to; never click a link in an email, instead use your trusted book marked link.

I do all my banking and bill payments on line and I do get bill payment notifications via email but I never click on any links in those emails just to be safe.

Good luck and let us know how this turns out.