I was recently talking to a friend of mine name Billy whose Bank of America accounts were all drained in about a two day period without him knowing it.  How did this happen - he fell victim to one of the most rampant forms of fraud that is out there called Phishing.

Essentially what Phishing is is when you receive an email that looks totally legitimate from your bank (or another bank that claims to be your bank) - or I have even seen them from PAY PAL - and they tell you there is a problem with your account and you need to come login to the website to confirm something, or change something, etc. etc.

 The email looks just like it is coming from the bank, or Pay Pal, and when you click on the link to login, you go to a website that looks totally legitimate as well, but when you put in your user name and password, that is the beginning of the identity theft process, they will then most likely prompt you to confirm your address, social security number, and maybe your date of birth and mother's maiden name, etc.  You get the point.

The whole time this is happening they are preparing to immediately login to your real account and start draining your funds.

 This is a terrible crime that unfortunately preys on the trusting and innocent, and I would personally like to see the culprits strung up.

To let you know, Billy is still struggling to get his money back.

For more on Phishing, you can see what Symantec says about it here:

http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/security_response/phishing.jsp