They call it 'phishing' or 'spoofing' and it is the fastest-growing fraud on the web, netting cyber-criminals millions of pounds, dollars and euros. Sophisticated gangs are setting up fake websites that mimic well-established companies and banks.
See also: Fake banks and web sites in the news 2000 - 2003
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2005: Mar 03 2005 - NBC Nightly News:
Fake banks lure customers online - At first glance, it looks much like any other Internet bank. Pearl Atlantic Credit & Trust says it offers loans, project financing and online banking, with deposits insured by the FDIC. There are even pictures of a CEO, Victor Bartruff, and other officers. [...] "Artists against 419," a grassroots consumer group which targets these scams, says the fake bank appears tied to an e-mail scam. "We probably find five or ten more a day on average," says a woman who volunteers at the group and asked that we not use her name. "We keep finding new ones."
Feb 11 2005 - zdnet.com.au:
Web vigilantes launch attacks -- Internet vigilantes have launched a
48-hour bandwidth attack against spammers who defraud people online. The 419 Flash Mob, supported by Artists Against 419, has declared war on criminals who host fake bank Web sites in the hope of luring victims to deposit money there. The attacks began on Wednesday. A Web site statement from Artists Against 419 said, "This flash mob is in celebration of Chinese New Year ... Our aim is to shut down eight fake bank web sites in less than 48 hours!" [...]
Feb 09 2005 - Slashdot.org:
Artists Against 419 Releases Mugu Marauder -- An anonymous reader writes "Similar in scope to the (now defunct) screensaver created by Lycos that targeted spam sites, the newly-released Mugu Marauder is intended to take fraudulent bank sites off the air by sponging up their bandwidth. Mugu Marauder can be downloaded at
2004:
Dec 31 2004 - Information Age infoconomy.com:
The lawless Internet -- Direct action -- Old Coaster, is a qualified doctor, retired stockbroker and former bank board member (...) As part of the group 'Artists Against 419', he is on a crusade to shut down the fake bank sites that scammers use (...) After verifying that a site has no legitimate status with a banking regulator, the activists ask the web hoster to close it down. Most oblige but if not, the group asks large numbers of associates to visit the offending site using a downloadable tool, http://Lad Vampire.
Dec 09 2004 - AARP Bulletin (Switzerland):
Scam Alert - Can't Win for Losing The catch: No prize money is released until the "winners" pay customs duties, taxes, or shipping and handling fees, usually to a Western Union office in Canada. Swindlers can wreak even more damage if they can sell their victims on the convenience of automatically withdrawing the fees from their bank accounts. Once they have access, the con artists can deplete the account. Law enforcement officials say the Canadian lottery hoax is robbing Americans of about $120 million a year.
Nov 16 2004 - Ghanaweb.com:
Beware of White Collar Scams Others may be in the form of "spoof banks" where there is supposedly money in your name already on deposit; "paying" for a purchase with a check larger than the amount required and asking for change to be advanced; fake lottery 419; and ordering items and commodities off "trading" sites on the web and then cheating the seller. The variations of Advance Fee Fraud (419) are very creative and virtually endless.
Oct 30 2004 - The Times:
Scam baiting: They are the online jungle's lowlife -- eBay auction scammers, Nigerian advance-fee fraudsters, fake bank website "phishers" trawling for the next sucker. Their lucrative cons play on human greed and naivety, yet they evade detection through the anonymity of the web (...) But what if the fraudsters themselves could be conned?
Sept 15 2004 - MSN Money:
Advance fee fraud: The UK's National Criminal Intelligence Agency says
150 million a year is reaped by variations of this fraud. (...) In the last year, the NCIS says it has detected an increasing number of frauds in which bogus bank websites are set up, and the victims are provided with a PIN number and logon ID which apparently allows them to see that the prize has already cleared into the account. The identities of genuine companies are sometimes used to add an extra layer of authenticity.
Aug 11 2004 - ABCNEWS:
Regulators Shut Down Phony Bedrock Bank Federal regulators shut down a phony Internet bank claiming to be located in the tiny Colorado town of Bedrock population 10 near the Utah state line.
Aug 13 2004 - Monterey County Herald, et al:
International email scams score billions with offer of millions "I had one person last week who lost $40,000," said a college student who is a member of Artists against 419, one of a growing number of Web sites devoted to foiling advance-fee scams. The college student, known online as Sister Mary Catherine..."
Aug 08 2004 - Guardian UK:
Only winners are con gangs: Log on to
Aug 08 2004 - This is Guernsey:
The Guernsey Financial Services Commission battles bogus Internet banks Over the last three years, there had been an increase in fraudsters setting up bogus bank websites. These look like a genuine bank and claim to have a connection to a reputable jurisdiction such as Guernsey, Jersey or the Isle of Man. Victims are referred to the sites by the fraudsters who say they are independent of the bogus bank. Investors are encouraged to open accounts with a promise that they will receive all, or a percentage, of a large sum of money. The bogus bank asks for an initial deposit and, after paying, that is the last the victim will see of it.
Aug 02 2004 - The Register:
Net vigilantes target 419 sites Artists Against 419 (AA419) has organised a 48-hour online protest against Phishers and advanced fee fraud, otherwise known as the 419 scam. The protest is an organised version of the SlashDot effect whereby a huge number of visitors turn up at a site, overwhelming its bandwidth allocation. The virtual flash mob began at midnight on 1 August and has already taken down three of its targets.
July 25 2004 - Mail on Sunday:
FINANCIAL Mail's list of fake banks to avoid has a new recruit: A call to the tricksters on their website phone number 020 7060 0487 was automatically transferred to an unknown destination where a man with a heavy West African accent tried unsuccessfully to convince me he was a banker.
July 20 2004 - BankInfoSecurity.com:
Social Engineering Offers Increased Threat to Banking Industry Please be advised that the Web site is not operated by the OCC. It is a fraudulent attempt to acquire personal confidential information from users of the site for the purpose of identity theft.
July 16 2004 - News24:
419 scam hits SA cabinet Photos of the ministers who are unwittingly being involved (under false names), are published on a website where they are portrayed as directors or senior managers of First National Bank (FNB).
July 12 2004 - The Register:
419 'bankers' back in business. As is the case with UMCIB, Trans-Atlantic Private Bank is not registered with the Financial Services Authority.
July 12 2004 - Toronto Star: Scambaiters lure fraudsters: Artists Against 419 takes a different approach ... against fake bank sites used by scammers. They teach you how to respond to phishers; how to waste their time and money.
July 11 2004 - Star-Telegram, Texas:
GETTING HOOKED Artists against 419 also conducts monthly "flash mobs," a vigilante effort to shut down fraudulent bank sites.
July 09 2004 - Cape Cod Times:
Vacation getaway: Family taken in by phony Web site offering $3,500 Cape summer rental.
July 09 2004 - The Register:
Anatomy of a 419 scam: The following is an account of how one US citizen recently lost $1,000 to a UK-based 419 outfit who used a combination of plausible correspondence, phone calls and a fake bank website to reel in their victim.
July 08 2004 - Town Times:
The Better Business Bureau hopes to curtail 'phishing' Comprehensive phishing resources are available on the Internet for consumers at
Having fun with 419 fraudsters: Well, you could always join that other global phenomenon, the 'flash mob', a new technique against the 419 scam. Get tools to use at
June 24 2004 - Khaleej Times, Dubai: Beware of fraudulent companies: A recent example of this was the uncovering of Saturn Jobs, a fraudulent recruitment company, which operated from Britain, and duped thousands of Indians and Bangladeshis of their money by promising them jobs in the Middle East.
June 23 2004 - Reuters:
How to outfox the email scammers: British police recently estimated that phishing scams cost UK banks an estimated 60 million pounds last year. The economic toll of phishing in the United States is much worse, costing American banks and credit card companies $1.2 billion (660 million pounds) in 2003, since so few internet users are willing to cooperate in putting fraud web sites out of business.
June 22 2004 - BBC:
How to avoid getting caught by the lottery fraudsters: Ultimate FI's impressive-looking website was registered to a man in Amsterdam who had already been connected to other fake banking sites used in online scams.
June 22 2004 - Netcraft.com:
After months of rapid growth, the number of phishing attacks leveled off in May, rising just 6 percent with a total of 1,197 unique campaigns, according to new data from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).
June 19 2004 - THE WASHINGTON TIMES:
The Federal Trade Commission has settled civil charges with two men accused of stealing consumers' personal information by setting up fake Web sites designed to look like those of legitimate companies.
June 17 2004 - THE NEW YORK TIMES:
E-mail Scammers Face Dose of Vigilante Justice: For instance, Karl Dailey, the sheriff of Dawes County, Nebraska, has also joined the effort. After local residents started asking him about the schemes, he said, he got involved with the fraud-baiters at Artists Against 419
May 11 2004 - The Register:
Lottery scams new flavour of the month: If victims do not want to pay upfront fees, they can open an (online) account with a specified bank, whose "policy" requires a deposit of around $3,000. This bank, however, is fake, as are many banks with web sites and online 'services'. As the folks at
May 2nd 2004 - Mail on Sunday:
Get on the web to hit the cheats: You don't need any technical knowledge to help attack the crooks. Just go to artists against 419 Let's see how many crooks we can kick off the internet in one day. This plan works much like the Lycos Screen Saver which so many of the 'do-gooders' on the net squalled about.
April 14 2004 - USA TODAY:
Hot Sites: This site can tell you all about it, but they're also doing something fresh: Fighting back -- not just 'filtering'. Come here to see how you can help mess with the bad guys' heads.
April 05 2004 - The Register:
Scambusters target 419 online 'banks': Since Artists against 419 started operating, around 85 scam websites and phake banks have been removed.
Visa launches new channel to fight online fraud: In recent months Visa has identified and shut down a number of spoofed websites around the world.
March 23 2004 - The Sacramento Bee:
Scam alert: 'Deceased-relative' scam costs Sacramento-area man $27,000. Phishers on the net con artists posing as London bankers from HSBC.
March 19 2004 - The Sydney Morning Herald:
Man faces court over $5m internet scam Nick Marinellis, the alleged Australian mastermind behind a global internet scam has set up a website to con victims into believing they could claim millions of dollars through lottery winnings.
March 5 2004 - Lottery Post:
New Jersey man loses $41,000 in sweepstakes scam The con artists then gave the victim the name and Web site of a bank that was supposed to be in Barcelona, but police say it was a fraudulent Web site.
Feb 14 2004 - The Detroit News: FBI ties Internet scam increase to organized crime, terrorist sympathizers: The Phishing scams and their phake banks have become the single most prevalent crime on the Internet, experts say.
Jan 30 2004 - Cambridge News:
Mr. Fountain became the last victim of the Dutch lottery fraud: He committed suicide by setting himself alight after he was cheated by an internet scam. Widow's warning after internet scam tragedy: "I'm not unintelligent and neither was Leslie. We both worked at universities and dealt with technology. _If we can be conned, anyone can._"
Jan 8 2004 - The Age: Fake bank website spotted: A new wave of hoax emails targeting Australian bank customers, and how netters are _shutting them down forcibly_.
Related internal links:
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you as sick as I am of the growing number of frauds and spams on the net? Then do as I have done, and join Blue Security and/or similar groups such as Artists Against 419 who use _deterrance_ instead of ineffectual filtering methods to run the crooks out of town. It is moral, it is ethical, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Don't expect ICANN or any so-called 'authorities' on the net to give you any help. If anything, assume that ICANN will fight your efforts. PAT]