E-mail scams
Date: October 07, 2007Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By:
My name is I. Cheatum and I am the assistant branch manager of Crooked Credit Services.
I am soliciting your assistance in the transfer of $15,000,000 in U.S. currency from our bank. This sum of money is much too large for our operation, so I am requesting to place it in your bank account with 30 percent as your payment.
Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn't it?
Except those words are similar to what millions of people receive in their e-mail accounts daily from con artists.
From phony foreign dignitaries to bogus business leaders, scammers are using a multitude of false identities in the hopes of defrauding others via the Internet by draining their bank accounts or selling off their personal information to the highest bidder.
The practice of using e-mails to conduct scams is called "phishing," a play on the idea of fishing for information or hooking a victim. Another scam, but similar, is called "spoofing," where someone with basic computer programming knowledge creates a phony e-mail that looks as if it came from a reputable business or Internet service.
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