Spate of fake e-mails spooks agencies

Landesman says the FBI e-mail may be particularly convincing because the agency's name can alarm recipients and catch them off guard.

"Getting an e-mail from the FBI is akin to having a state trooper in your rear view mirror," she said.  "Even if you are doing the speed limit, your heart will go faster, and you'll think, 'Maybe I did go to a bad Web site, or maybe my kid did.'"

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security issued its own a warning about two separate fake e-mails. Both are variations on the famous Nigerian scam, which invites recipients to help move millions of dollars out of the country.

In one scam, an e-mail writer poses as a volunteer working with U.S. forces, saying he was friends with a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, and asking for help returning the soldier's money to his family. Another e-mail claiming to be from the immigration department asks recipients for help tracking down funds looted from the Iraqi Central Bank by Saddam Hussein’s son.

"These new Internet fraud schemes are among the worst we have ever encountered. Most troubling is the fact that some are targeting the relatives of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq," said Michael J. Garcia, the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a statement.

It's nearly impossible to give consumers general guidance on how to tell a real e-mail from a fake one, Landesman said. But one piece of advice she offered: take the subject line of a suspicious e-mail and paste it into the Google search engine to see if it has generated any complaints. 

Still, it's hard to give consumers general safety guidelines, Schmugar said.

"There's so much illegitimate email running around the Internet right now that you are more likely to get something illegitimate than legitimate," Schmugar said.

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