I got phished over the weekend, by doing what I tell people not to do: follow a link in email. But it did remind me of something, which is that the only thing that matters is the URL. All the rest is window dressing.
Of course, it was the window dressing that took me in. I was using the Windows Live Mail beta and was invited to fill in a survey about the Windows Live Mail beta by the the Windows Live Mail beta team. It looked authentic, and apparently came from an authentic third party survey company. But if only I'd done a quick search on the link to the survey site at http://websurvey.opinionbar.com -- or at least on opinion.bar -- then I might have spotted the con.
Fortunately the scam was a mild one. Opinion.bar pays people to do little surverys and give their opinions on things -- in this case, brands of flat screen TV -- and you can generate more money if you can get other people to fill them in on your behalf. It's a kind of click fraud. The personal embarassment, of course, is something else again.....
Update: Opinionbar and Metrixlab.com are legitimate businesses. I've dropped MetrixLab a note to ask why they don't provide a simple way to report this kind of phishing.
