Phishing is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. Fraud is a deliberate misrepresentation, which causes another person to suffer damages, usually monetary losses. Mules are people that are hired to reship stolen merchandise out of the U.S. Foreigners with unenforceable, or no laws, are using each of these scams to make money unethically.

Phishing has been around for a while. Ever since email has been widely used, phisher sites and emails are being used to collect and steal consumers’ information. This information is used for making false purchases. This information can and usually is used for identity theft. At first glance, it may not be obvious to the recipients that what is in their inbox is not a legitimate e-mail from a company with whom they do business. The "From" box of the e-mail may have the domain address of the company, and the clickable link may also appear to be taking you to the company's Web site, but will in fact take you to a mock Web site for that company. The idea here is to trick you into giving your credit card and as much other information as possible. You can even be giving your IP address location, username at certain sites and other information just by clicking on the link. Typically, this is all done behind the scenes so you do not know that you just gave the server and the web site your information. Phishing and email spamming are the first steps in collecting information to complete moneymaking swindle. Although The Secret Service is the enforcer of most Internet crime, they simply do not have the resources to combat the massive amount just in the U.S. alone (Gunder 2005).

Credit card fraud is the second step in money making swindle. You can either apply with someone else’s ID for a credit card and use that or if you know the right people online you can purchase a collection of credit card information that was stolen from a database (Pollick 2005). Since the large breech on 6/19/05 of the 40 million, yes that is 40,000,000 credit card numbers and information that was stolen there is an over flow of available credit cards to use. Last checked 700,000 were used to make online purchases. Once this information is obtained, then purchase can be made and the products shipped to almost where ever. Some products like Dell computers ask that you specifically not send these items out of the country (Dell.com 2005). Of course, since the fraud person has not only stolen the information needed to make the purchase they also tricked someone into giving them their information most likely they will not have any issue with clicking on the checkbox on Dell.com to complete the purchase.

Obtaining Mules is the last step in completing this unethical and sometimes illegal act. An example would look something like this:

From: manager@sungermany.org

To: xxx@hotmail.com

Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 12:50 AM

Subject: New job offer for xxx xxxxxx

Hello xxx xxxx. My name is Deborah Shull and I work for a company called Sun Germany Computers I found your resume on careerbuilder.com because we are searching for reliable professionals across the United States who are interested in a potentially lucrative partnership with an international firm.

Sun Germany Computers is a leading software company in Germany and we are currently expanding our operations in the United States. But because of various banking and legal restrictions, we are unable to open commercial bank accounts in every state. As such, Sun Germany Computers is recruiting partners to conduct simple banking transactions on our behalf.

The process is simple. If you were interested in becoming a US partner of Sun Germany Computers, you would sign an agreement that would make you an official financial representative of our company, able to accept invoice payments on our behalf. Instead of asking our American clients to conduct complicated international payment transactions (which are especially complex for German companies), we have them work with our partners to submit payments. You would then forward the payments to us, a simple transaction for an individual.

Sun Germany Computers pays its partners a 10% commission on every transaction. In addition, we will take care of any incremental tax liability you incur. Depending on which state you are in, and of course on how good business is, your monthly commissions could be as high as $4,000 per month.

If you are interested in working with us, or if you want more information, you can contact me directly at my personal email address: manager@sungermany.org. I'll need your full name and mailing address so I can send you the contract and other paperwork necessary to get started.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Deborah Shull

manager@sungermany.org

www.sungermany.org

(from http://www.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54552)

This site is now shut down and the registrant/owner lost the domain due to abuse. However, as he is a foreigner in another country nothing will happen to him. That is right nothing will happen, no arrest, no charges filed, nothing. The reason is that as it currently stands no law has technically been broken in his country (Gunder 2005). As these acts are clearly unethical and even illegal here in the U.S., in places like Brazil, India, and many third world nations there simply is not any laws defined for Internet crime. Mainly because it is not wide spread, enough for the governments to get involved at this point (Funder 2005). Typically, this would have to be policed and regulated by a new division of the UN that could actually devote the work force, time, and money for locating fining and possible prosecuting the criminals in any country where this is being done (Gunder 2005). However there is little chance that the U.N. or ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) can or will do anything to combat this as they simply do not have the resources for it. As well, the operators of these scams and fraudulent activities are typically non-U.S. citizens and are not subject to the laws protecting and governing these situations.

Citied Page

Phisher definition http://www.webopedia.com Vangie 'Aurora' Beal
Writer, www.Webopedia.com Last updated: January 21, 2005

Mules Agent Levi Gunder of the U.S. Secret Service Los Angeles Electronic Crime Task Force

http://www.usatoday.com By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY Posted 6/19/2005 10:10 PM