As an example, I got this the other week…

Now, I’m assuming that it’s actually legit, but sloppy, as it does appear that each link goes to an Amazon.com URL.

Once you finish, it shows you the answers, and how to spot the fake sites.

Of course, one of the problems is that a prime indication of a fake site is awkward or badly phrased wording. This, unfortunately, is not limited to fake web sites. While it isn’t generally a trait of big corporate web sites, that have professionals working on them, there’s any number of smaller businesses that have badly designed, misspelt or awkwardly-worded sites.

In most cases, it’s careful inspection of the URL that will indicate for sure if you’re talking to the right people. Some of the quiz examples excluded this information, to make you look for other signs, which was good. But in practice all browsers should be displaying the URL. Some older versions don’t do this on popup windows and so on, which is a problem… you can see it by right-clicking and looking at the properties of the page, but most people wouldn’t remember to do this consistently.

From: Australian Government <admin @ ato.gov.au>
To: dbowen @ custard.net.au
Date: 15-Jun-2007 16:32
Subject: Australian Taxation Office – Please Read This.

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $163.80
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your tax refund, please click here

Regards, Australian Government

© Copyright 2007, Australian Taxation Office – All rights reserved..

The click here link was to: http://bigart.com.tr/ato/updatedb/ (rest snipped)… from the looks of it this domain is commonly used by phishers. Evidently they’ve been at it for a few months now.