Internet dangers abound for small business startups
March 20th, 2006
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A couple of months ago I wrote about some of the dangers you face on the internet–phishing and pharming. I read a story today that makes me want to reiterate that you need to be careful out there.
A study showed that one out twenty people who received e-mails “phishing” for personal information fell victim to the scam and half of those fell victim to the crime–losing $600 on average to the scammers. It’s easy to respond to the wrong e-mail when you are a busy start up owner–plus they look like they come from your bank or credit card company.
March 20th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
I’m usually good at spotting the phishers or pharmers, but one last week almost had me fooled.
They used an exact company logo and a url that was very close.
The page was set up exactly like the real credit card company’s website. I finally did some checking around the site and found the home page had foreign characters. I deduced it was a fake-a-roo.
Now. These guys are obviously coding geniuses and pretty savvy with web design and development. They even know a little about marketing… at least e-mail marketing.
So why spend all that time as a bunch of scummy bottom feeders, stealing money (for a comparitively small amount of money), when they could come up with legitimate business idea, develop it, and make a fortune?