“Phishing” is one of the most common online scams. A phishing site is a site that is set up to look like any legitimate site. Phishing sites get you by sending you an email that looks legitimate.

They are pervasive and responsible for defrauding people of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

Ebay has been used to phish for passwords, credit cards and bank information. It works like this:

You receive an email from Ebay that says you need to verify your account.

You click on the link, the link takes you to a page that looks like your login page, you enter your user name and password, thereby giving the criminals the tools they need to steal your identity or at the very least, use your

Ebay account to rack up numerous charges, sell non-existent items and leave YOU dangling as the criminal who takes money and does not ship the items.

Obviously, the email you receive in these cases is NOT from Ebay. Ebay will not ask you to verify your account through email after your initial sign up.

Online bank frauds work in the same manner, only with these, the criminal ends up with not only your user name and password, but your banking information as well.

Because of this, the majority of online banks are now sending messages as text instead of html. You do not click on a link in emails from a bank.

Even sites like Myspace have been targeted by phishing. Most of the problem is a viral mail that is sent out to all the people on your friend’s list, but it can be more dangerous.

If you use the same email and password for other sites, phishing criminals will now have access to more of your private information.

Tomorrow: What You Can Do to Protect Yourself from Phishing Sites