In computing, phishing (also known as carding and spoofing) is a form of social engineering, characterised by attempts to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an apparently official electronic communication, such as an email or an instant message. The term phishing arises from the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to "fish" for users' financial information and passwords.
I get tons of phishing e-mails. Uusally two or three everday on some accounts. When they first started I used to forward them to my regional FBI office, but there are so many I just delete them anymore. I'm sure the local FBI agents get plenty of heads up on them.
Today I decided to do something just for fun and visit a couple of those fake site links. They are quite sophisticated. They even have number checking algorithims in place. I enter several sets of fake data, and even a couple universal system test numbers and the phishing sites promptly notified me there was something wrong with the number. LOL.. I did not go further to see if they would accept a legitimate card number for obvious reasons, but over all I was impressed with the layout. Its sad really that somebody with that much talent doesn't feel they can make a good living from legitimate use of their skills.