I just got this email:

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/9464/fraud8zg.jpg

checked the Amazon site and it says:

Amazon Security


So be careful! Don't respond. This applies to lots of other similar topics, such as PayPal etc.

There is one simple practice which will ensure that you will not get "phished.'

NEVER go to a supposedly secure site by clicking on a link embedded in an email. If you need to check, navigate to you account or institution home page by using bookmarks or typing in the addreress.

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

Last year, there was one for Ebay. It was a "verification" email. You just cliked the link and were brough to a site where you had to fill out a form conforming your ebay paypal account. The "site" even had an ebay logo/link that actually took you to the actual ebay site, which made it look even more "real".

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Isn't the fact that they don't visit us proof that intelligent life is out there?

The Confused Philosopher - RCAF

I get a couple of these a week, purportedly from Ebay or Paypal or Chase or some random bank or credit union. As Sammy says, if you think one of these messages is conceivably genuine, go directly to the website by entering the URL yourself - don't use the URL provided in the email (though generally if you do open up the provided URL, a close look will reveal that it's not the right one).

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I get them pretty frequently too, though probably a little less than 1 per week. PayPal is probably the most common, though bank ones too. Some of them momentarily get me fooled.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

I'm bemused by the ones I get for banks I don't even have accounts with. Talk about shots in the dark!

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

There's a new type of spam "requesting information" on an item you supposedly have up for sale. (These were remarkably easy to detect because I don't actually sell anything on ebay.)

I haven't actually followed a link, wasn't all that curious, but I'm getting the impression it's for an item being offered by the scammer/spammer. And that offer's probably a ripoff too.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

More likely, if you go to the link, it asks you to log in with your EBay account and password, so they get those.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I get a couple of these a month and I usually click the link and look the page over. Know thy enemy and all that. The address bar is an image pasted over the real one and it never lines up. It's quite pathetic.
I usually enter a name and password that starts with 'You are a...' or some other form of slander. I'm much too lazy to come up with bogus card numbers and all though but I like to think the name and password stuff gets logged somewhere and they will see it.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

ToSeek, JT: Good points. I hadn't thought of that.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

That's not necessarily a good idea. Some of the more sophisticated scammers will download a trojan from the website when access. Best to just delete the email.

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Free speech is no problem
It's listening that costs

Yeah, I know but I have AVG running and I concider it worth it to get to call them names.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

I got caught by an ebay scam, I clicked on a link in an email, (yes I know it was stupid!), within minutes my account showed hundreds of items for sale in my name. I was "selling" cameras, hi-fi, videos etc. within half an hour it would have cost me over a thousand pounds in charges alone!
I contacted ebay using the link on their website and had a "conversation" on line using a chat room type interface, the ebay operator then phoned me direct to confirm who I was and then managed to get the items removed, he then went through the process of changing passwords and paypal details etc.
The people at ebay were superb, (thanks guys!) but I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't checked my account after clicking the link!

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The meek will inherit the earth ... the rest of us will go to the stars.

We recently had a "bill" from O2 mobile sent to the church account. It was frustrating trying to contact O2 as you needed to have an O2 account before contacting them

When I finally found a number that did not demand I type in my mobile account in, I was informed that it was a scam e-mail and that the link it sent you to put a nasty on your machine.

O2 had to work with the ISPs to get that site taken down.

So do not even click on the phishing links just to see how good it is, the scam writes have now taken into account that some will twig what it is.

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Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

I always just delete those emails, but another useful tip is to hover your mouse pointer over the URL and check where the link goes - you can see it in the bottom left of IE (presumably other browsers do something similar too).

Try it with this: www.obvious-scam.com

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

No bank will ever ask you to verify your details by using the link provided. So do not do it.
You can not win a lottery or lotto in a foreign country if you did not buy or enter one.
You are not the only person in the world with your name. You have not got a relative with millions you have never herd of. You will not receive a cent.

The point is. . . Nothing is free. nothing. especially money.

and one more point. If you are approached while using a ATM. Do not let any one help you. If you think they are looking over your shoulder, they probably are. Do not enter your pin. If the part of the machine where your card goes looks wrong, leave.

Did anyone in the UK catch the PM programme, (a news and current affairs programme), on Monday 10 April on BBC Radio 4, . Apparently the Programme's e-mail address got notification that it had won the lotto in either Norway or the Netherlands.

It was hilarious, especially for thos of us plagued by these e-mails

I wonder if they will follow this up

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Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

One other hint about eBay. Most of you ar e probably too smart to do this, but when I first set up an eBay account in 1999, I used my email address as my account name. Bad! It became the source of much spam/scam email. I wised up and changed it two years ago, and got a new email address last year when DSL finally became available.

(edited to fix typo)

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

The "view source" option on most browsers is also a handy way to find out where a link actually goes. An ASCII code table is a useful thing for this; ripoffs commonly try to obfuscate the address of their phony page by using the numeric ASCII codes, e.g, "&#114&#111&#98&#121&#111&#117&#98&#108&#105&#110&#100&#46&#99&#111&#109" .

The email headers are usually a dead giveaway. If the "From:" field says "perfectlyrespectablefinancialinstitution.com" but the "Received" fields indicate that the email originated at an IP in Lower Slobbovia, it's a scam.

It's worth taking a minute to check the real Web site of the company whose name is being used as phishbait. Companies who are often used in this way, like Ebay, Paypal or Chase, will often have a "report abuse" or "report phishing" link that gives instructions for forwarding the scam email to their security people.

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Please enjoy your trip through this door.

They're all banks I don't have accounts with, largely because there's yet to be a phishing scam for pretty much any credit union, at least that I've seen.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"