E-mail Scams Part Two
Phishing for your Credit Card Number
By Senior Spin Staff
In the deep, ever-shifting sea of the Internet, fascinating sites can be discovered and pearls of information gathered, but there are also darker things swimming in these waters.
One of these darker things was Zachary Keith Hill of Houston Texas. Hill was a "phisher", a scam artist who fished for his marks over the Internet, catching hundreds of unwary victims and using their credit card information to make purchases for himself.
A phisher (in hacker language, the letters "ph" are often used in place of "f") sends out mass e-mailings that appear to be from legitimate businesses or organizations. These e-mails are often professionally done and contain convincing explanations as to why one must update or confirm one's credit card or other personal information. Receivers are directed to click on a link that leads to a Website that appears to be from a legitimate business or organization. Should one click the link, he will asked to input personal information such as his credit card number, address, or social security number. The site is actually owned by a scam artist who collects this information for his own personal use or to sell to criminal gangs.
Hill sent out e-mails that appeared to be from AOL. They warned that if the receivers did not update their billing information, their AOL accounts would be cancelled. The e-mails contained a link that led to a site that mimicked the AOL website. There, the unsuspecting were asked to submit detailed information, including their credit card information and billing addresses. The site had nothing to do with AOL, however: the graphics were stolen and the site actually belonged to Hill. All of the personal information went straight into Hill's own database. Hill is now awaiting sentencing, and his Phishing operation has been shut down, but there are hundreds more like him, sending convincing e-mail to unwitting Internet users every day.
Phishing schemes are becoming increasingly common and the techniques used by those who engage in them are growing ever more sophisticated. According to the US Department of Justice, there has been a significant increase in phishing activities during 2003 and early 2004. Visa, Fleet, Amazon, and even a US government Web site have all been targets of phishing scams.
It is sometimes very difficult to know where an e-mail originated or if a site you are directed to visit is a legitimate site. Should you receive an e-mail asking you to indulge any personal information, it is probably a scam. No legitimate bank or business should ask you to give or verify your credit card number in an e-mail. If you are not sure about this, and you have done business before with the bank or corporation in question, call them on the telephone (do not use any number provided in the e-mail: look up their number on a statement or call information) and tell them about the material that you received.
Never give your credit card number out to anyone unless you are purchasing something from a business or organization that you are absolutely sure of and you initiated the transaction yourself. Do not give out your credit card number for ANY other reasons. Do not trust any e-mail that asks you for personal information, or that directs you to a site that asks you for personal information.
ARE SCAM ARTISTS USING YOUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION?
Enter your Credit Card information in the form below for a free check:
Well, I hope that you did not try to enter your information in the "form". If you did, it didn't work because it is not a real form, but a picture of one. I could easily have made it into a working form, in which case your credit card number would be sitting in my database. I can't stress enough how easy it is to be fooled by sites that look perfectly legitimate and yet are designed only to steal your personal information. Don't let the phishers get their hooks in you.
Elizabeth England is Webmaster of Senior Spin.
