Financial scams on the web

It is a rare day when an e-mail user fails to find a notice from a criminal promoting some type of financial scam, be it a "phishing" attack designed to fool the user into giving up sensitive information or out and out fraud designed to get the user to part with cash. With the growth of the Internet as a valuable tool, opportunists have taken the opportunity to use the Web for fraud. In time, the problem of Web fraud and scams will only get worse, as the scammers seem to discover new means to circumvent all attempts to thwart them. The use of the World Wide Web has grown explosively in the last five years, and a great number of people now spend at least some time each and every day using the Internet for business, shopping or just the sending and receiving of electronic mail.

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Listed below is a list of the most well known scams facing users of the Web today:

• Phishing Scams - Phishing is a rather recent scam that involves sending e-mail messages that seem to be from a financial institution, such as Wells Fargo or PayPal. The phishing opportunists send e-mail that looks official and threatens that due to "safety violations" your account may shortly be frozen. So that they might "confirm" your identity, you are asked to follow a link and fill out a form with your personalized information. If you click the link, you will be taken to a Website that appears to be the real site of the bank or financial company mentioned. But if you complete the form, the thieves will have successfully stolen your personal and/or financial information. A phishing scheme is easy to stay away from. Your financial institution is never going to e-mail you for your password due to the fact that your financial institution already is aware of your password. Simply ignore e-mail notices that ask for name, date of birth and/or Social Security Number. If uncertain, call the organization and ask if the notices are legitimate.

• Nigerian electronic mail scam. The Nigerian method is currently renowned, and it's so well known that one would think that no one would be fooled by it today. A notice arrives in your inbox from someone alleging to be an acquaintence of a person who was a high ranking official in the Nigerian government. That person has been removed from his position and needs assistance in taking millions of dollars in cash from the country. All they ask in exchange for giving you 10% of the money is the use of your bank account. Oh, and they will need some money to help enable the transfer, so if you could send one thousand dollars or so, that would help. If you are lucky, all you will waste is the money you transfer to the sender. If you aren't so lucky, you could lose the money in your bank account, as well. There are variations on this crime; we just recently saw an e-mail message with a similar theme purporting to be from a famous person It's difficult to believe that people would really reply to appeals for money from people they didn't know, but greed takes over and people actually participate in these schemes.
  
  Pharming scam - When the victim types in the name of a genuine Internet site, such as that of their bank or credit union, their Internet browser is tricked into redirecting them to the fraudulent site. Similar in concept to a phishing attack, a pharming attack uses some Web browser trickery to fool a person into visiting a false Web site for a bank or financial organization when the cconsumer thinks she is actually visiting a real one. A pharming attack is ideally avoided using spyware detection software, such as Spybot. Pharming involves some dangerous code that must be installed on the user's computer.