Phishing Scams and Email Fraud on the Internet

Phishing email scams along with the Nigerian scam letter are some of the most common forms of email scams found on the Internet. Many people have become victims of fraud by responding to these emails. Usually, the email tries to get the person reading the email to provide information that would somehow allow the perpetrator of the scam to get access to money or, in other cases, to get the victim to send money that would help clear the way for them to receive a large fortune.

Various stories are made up to fool people into thinking that they could receive a large amount of money. One of the most common is the inheritance scam from African countries such as Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. A wealthy individual dies in a car crash, plane crash or from some other misfortune such as cancer. Since it happens that they have no next of kin, the person who sent the email claims that the money will belong to the government. To prevent this from happening, the victim only needs to send a few thousand dollars to pay a fee to release the money and receive a large percentage.

With phishing emails, the scammer poses as a bank. The email starts off with saying there is a problem with the person's bank or credit card account. To fix the problem, they have to click on a link provided in the email and enter information such as a bank account number, a credit card number or social security card number. The link takes the person to a phishing website that is posing as the real website. By checking the URL, however, it is possible to tell whether the website is real or not. In addition, phishing emails tend to be shorter than the foreign or Nigerian scam letters. Some of the banks that the phishing scammers pose as tend to be Chase, Citibank and Bank of America. Originally, the scam involved Paypal but now includes IRS scams as well as small town credit unions. Department stores such as Walmart and Kmart seem to be more a recent mode of camouflage for the phishing Internet scam.

The subject heading and email address of the sender have certain characteristics to distinguish one type of email fraud from the others. One of these characteristics is the words used to address the recipient. With the phishing emails, words are used in the subject line like "urgent," "attention needed," "account deactivated" and "account suspended." With the Nigerian scam letter, some of the words may be similar such as "urgent" but more often words are used like, "dear," "dear friend," "good day," and "dear beloved." In addition, the words in the Nigerian scam letter might be capitalized such as, "CONGRADULATIONS, YOU WON", which is seen often in the lottery scams. The theme used in the phishing email scam seems to be constant. It is just a short message used to get the victim to click on the link and enter information. The Nigerian scam email, however, can vary greatly. More effort is put into the scam letter than the phishing email. The word count is much longer and it tries to get the victim to empathize with the senders message using a story or request for help.

More often than not, the story in the scam letter involves a dead person or one almost dead that has a lot of money. The amount is usually greater than one million dollars but can be less. It is rare to see less than $100,000.00. Anyhow, the dead person has no relatives to inherit the fortune so somebody offers to split it with the victim of the scam if they act as next of kin. In the case of the sick and dying person, the disease is usually cancer and the sender wants to do good by giving the victim some money. In most cases, the victim either has to pay some kind of fee to release the money or provide information such as bank account numbers so the cash can be transferred into their account. If account numbers are provided, no matter the scam, the cash usually goes the other way. Although the scam letter mostly originates in African countries such as Nigeria, Benin and Ivory Coast, they also come or appear to come from the United Kingdom, Spain, France and the Netherlands along with other countries in Europe, especially the UK. By observing these factors, it is possible to avoid phishing email scams.