Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Spam for the soul


"Government spam the way to fight scams" mentions the IC3, which says on its Web site that it is in partnership between the FBI, NW3C and the BJA, whatever that means.

As noted in the column, some of the scams involve "notices" from the agencies themselves.

In one, an e-mail "advises the recipient that they are the beneficiary of a large sum of money which they will be permitted to access once fees are paid and personal banking information is provided. The appearance of the e-mail leads the reader to believe that it is from FBI Deputy Director John S. Pistole."

The other one is an e-mail claiming you have a "refund notifications purportedly from the IC3 and the government of the United Kingdom. The e-mails claim the refunds are being made to compensate the recipients for their losses as victims of Internet fraud."

There is a good number of Web sites that deal with the issue. Here's but a few:

* The Federal Trade Commission: http://www.ftc.gov/spam/
* FBI on scams: http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm