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I just received an email purporting to be from my bank saying I would be approved for a "lone" and all I had to do was confirm my details by entering my password and username,

Made me laugh.

The great ones were the ones from saying you'd won the Nigerian Lottery or that some money had been left for you in some Ethiopian's name.

There is a brilliant website called http://www.419eater.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; where the guy gets these scam artists to basically do anything he wants them to by playing along with what they want. They are very long email conversations but it's pretty much entirely sarcasm which makes it brilliant!

http://www.419eater.com/html/ebi_garry2.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - this one is well worth a read... Go Arse Bandits United!

Dave, that sounds serious and you should be looking to get that lone sorted. Not sure why this is funny.

Well I guess if anyone was stupid enough not to see right through it then it wouldn't be funny but it ties in with the thread about why spelling IS important, if I see any kind of official email communication with poor spelling I immediately discount it as fraudulent and delete it.

Some of the attempts to manipulate internet users are successful and a lot of supposed "hacks" are the result of users giving away information to senders of fake emais requesting details as I outlined in my OP. I repeatedly get one telling me to enter my Paypal account details, the sender will have created an email address like [email protected] obviously a fake but people do fall for it.

One of my friends "bought" a puppy online and sent £400 to an obvious scammer, (obvious to anyone who could spell, anyway) the Police weren't interested but I eventually tracked him down using what are termed "social engineering" techniques and got his home address which I then passed on to Police who seized his computer and found several hundred victims details on there.

Nice site Luke, I've seen some of those before.

Yeah i was just messing Dave!

We keep on getting phone calls about how our computer has broken down and they are ready to fix it remotely if i just hand them my bank details. I normally come up with the response, "Now, what is a computer? Many people have been talking about them..."

The shame is that there is obviously enough people falling for it that make it all worthwhile. :/