Community poll forum: Have you been the victim of a phishing scam?

I received two phish emails this month. Both, supposedly from Ebay, informing me that my account needed updating. I have no account with Ebay!!

I get a few phishing e-mails a day. In fact, I had one in the same batch of messages with the CNET newsletter that this question was contained in. I agree that the best way to avoid them and try to stop them is to pass the scams on to the fraud address for whatever institution they're trying to impersonate. EBay and PayPal both say in their return e-mails that they report the attempt to "the proper authorities" whoever that is. At least it sounds as if something's being done!

Receiving a phishing scam is not unusual. It happens quite often. A nice official letter from some well known "Bank" or from "e-Bay" or from "Pay-Pal" arrives almost daily.
The "phool" is the person who answers this e-mail with out making sure the letter is genuine.
I personally don't know of any legitimate company that requests any personal or confidential information thru an e-mail.
There should be one simple rule when you receive one of these phishing expeditions: THROW IT OUT.

Don't just throw it out; report it to the supposed bank or company in question, if possible.

Most scam spam is anonymous, they don't know your name. However, I did receive one phishy scam spam that did have my name - but it was supposedly from a bank I'd never heard of!

I looked up the real bank website (Google is your friend!) and forwarded the scam spam to their security. They sent a confirmation, and shortly thereafter, the scam website was blocked!

Shortly before the term phishing was coined, I received a phishing attempt email. I didn't fall for it for one reason. I always notice the URL and it wasn't a normal, yes it had ebay in it, but it had some other gibberish in it as well. As a test, I put in bogus information for the login and it let me through. I immediately notified ebay, because I saw it as a potential hazard. Of course, never heard a response. So to answer the poll question. No, I have never fallen for a phishing attempt.

I NEVER ACCEPT E-MAIL FROM BANKS, CREDIT CARD COMPANIES, OR SALES ORGANIZATIONS. JUST DELETE ALL.ALL CONTACTS ARE INITIATED BY ME.
BART

I have gotten emails that state that, ''you have won a PS2, XBOX, etc.", that looked very, very, very real and I almost got it until the site wouldn't except nothing but bank debit cards. At least I was thinking enough to realise that that wasn't right! I now realise that nothing via emails are real! I delete ANY offers that come in that manner.

I too became suspicious when I received an e-mail from e-bay about activity on my account with a link to update my information. Luckily I remembered reading that e-bay would never ask me to update that info via e-mail and I promptly reported it and received a reply that indeed it was a fradulent e-mail. I have also received e-mails from citi card as well. To all those out there, when in doubt report it!

By the time I got a phishing e-mail, I had already heard and learnd about the subject.
The one's I got I've send to Paypal or Ebay, they were for me obviously bad guy e-mails.
Beside of phishing e-mail I got a number of times e-mail about millions that should go out of there country. Also that subject was already known by me, so I did only a delete action of that e-mail.
From now on I'll also do what has been advised by all of those who has reacted on the question "How to recognize and avoid phishing scams".
Thanks !
I'll spread, after translating into dutch, it hier in the Netherlands and hope to get reactions about where in the Netherlands I can force legal action of the authorities by reporting these criminal actions.
Johan Pronk

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SWUGCONF

Cheers!

1 I never respond to the messages.
2 I never go to the websites until I am ready to do business . . . just in case there a redirect in place.
3 I only use my bookmarked addresses to go to the website.
4 In case bookmarks fail, I keep addresses with coded passwords in Splash ID.
5 I use Privacy Eraser on my computer to regularly clean history and such.
6 I use Trend AntiVirus and report all suspicious emails and block senders.

Then when a virus modifies your hosts file with a spoofed address for www.ebay.com., or www.bankamerica.com, you click on your favorite's link and think you're going where you clicked and instead you're going to a hackers website who is now capturing your login information...
Unfortunatly, there is nothing you can do about these kinds of scams...My suggestion is that you set the hosts file to read-only and log into your computer with a different username and remove that username from the modify access for that hosts file. This way, you will have *some* protection from this.
Ed
web/gadget guru

I use a screening (MailWasher) so that a much is deleted from the server and never downloaded into my Eudora directory. Secondly, if it is one of the PayPal or Ebay phishing scams, I ususally send to their spoof address. Lastly, if I do not recognize the sender or the title is suspect, it goes to the great bit bucket.
Mike

On the other hand I rated all as phished as I have no business relations with any of them. I forwarded two recent attempts similar to those shown to the spoof address of the company. If you do so be sure to send the complete address of the sending party. It may well be bogus, but some might contain some clues.

I get bogus offers similar to the spoofs as regular mail telling me I have won "computer," or some other goodie. All get the bit bucket delete.

It continues because a hit rate of one in a hundred thousand can be profitable. I suspect the "marks" are more prevalent than this ratio.

duke