Internet Savvy Folks Fall For Phisher Scams

from the think-you're-immune? dept

It's almost impossible these days not to see a story or two a day about the latest "phisher" scam, where a con artist sends an email looking as though it's from a trusted company such as eBay or a well known bank, and asking people to fill out a form that includes basically every little bit of information anyone would need to know to access all of their bank accounts and credit cards. You might be wondering who falls for this sort of thing, and the answer is that an awful lot of people do - and many claim to be internet savvy professionals. In many cases, they get the email and they fill out the form in a rush, and then realize it as soon as they hit the submit button. Scammers claim (and you have to take any such claims with a grain of salt) that such phisher emails yield about a 10% hit rate - which is pretty damn high. The folks who were conned often couldn't even remember filling out the form. Some, who track their finances online caught fraudulent transactions quickly, but had no idea how the info got out. Next thing someone needs to do is try to tie up a 419 Nigerian scam with a phisher scam and create ultimate email scam.

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