So what’s deal here? Well, for starters, to most Internet users emails and web sites are indistinguishable from legitimate business communications. Secondly, trusted sources reveal that by hijacking brands of well-known banks, online retailers and credit card companies, phishers are able to induce up to 5% of recipients to respond to them. How far can these unscrupulous companies and individuals get? Farther than most of us would think. Last Nov. 8, a man in Sydney, Australia, was imprisoned for more than five years for duping people into sending him millions of dollars in a global Internet ruse known as Nigerian scam. He presented himself as someone who needed access to a Western bank account in order to transfer a large sum of money out of a politically troubled country. Criminals taking part in Nigerian scam would then promise innocent email recipients a share of money, but ask for a smaller upfront cost - in concept of an ‘administration fee’ - before larger sum can be transferred. This way they make millions! Although this man pleaded guilty at Sydney Court, chances are it will take much more than one guilty man imprisoned to get this problem under control.

According to APWG’s Phishing Attack Trends Report (July 2004), most targeted industry sector for phishing attacks continues to be Financial Services, both from perspective of total attacks and number of companies targeted. Retail is second, whereas ISPs are third. Citibank seems to be company whose brand was hijacked most often by phishers. Some other recent phishing targets include AOL, Suntrust, Earthlink, Wells Fargo, MBNA, Charlotte's Bank of America, Paypal, Fleet, Best Buy and eBay.

http://www.e-vwd.com/redir.asp?m=1000000&target=/default.asp?goto=/vwdguest/match5.asp

The lady believed she had won a much larger price but she had questions and doubts, and as we started communicating more intense it became clear she had mixed up match 5 competition with another email which she received from a not so honest person telling and faking to her she had won over 55000 £ (use currency converter http://www.xe.net/ucc to calculate this amount into your own currency).

Of course she was happy, down side was, she had to pay first 890£ (a lot of money) to claim her prize and that's how she started to ask me questions to me about this, and it became crystal clear she was being scammed, person who had send her email telling her she had won over 55000 £ had only one reason, to collect 890 £ from her for so called transaction costs and then disapear to be never heard from again.