Tickets to the Oprah Show Smell a little Phishy

First gypsies impersonate Dr. Phil and now someone is selling tickets to the Oprah show that smell a little "phishy."

Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan warned the public in a official statement:

In this case, e-mail recipients are asked to submit personal information and told they will receive tickets to The Oprah Winfrey Show after verification of certain financial information and/or the wiring of money to an unknown third party. However, according to Harpo Productions, Inc., The Oprah Winfrey Show does not sell tickets or ticket travel packages to fans. Consumers should disregard any e-mail that purportedly comes from The Oprah Winfrey Show offering show taping tickets for a fee.

No one is reporting any cases of identity theft yet, however one this is certain; wire money to anyone for Oprah tickets and you are going to lose out!

Tickets to watch a taping of the Oprah show are free!

Fraudsters and Phishermen love to have money wired to them - because once it's picked up - it belongs to them and there is nothing the sender can do about it.

Western Union has a warning about wire transfer scams, here.

Of course, the personal information harvested from this phishing attempt might be for sale in underground forums (chat-rooms). More on this, here.

Please note that "unsolicited" requests for personal and financial information via the Internet are scams, no matter how official they might seem. Fake "official looking" websites - including banking sites - are all "too" common in the "sometimes" murky waters of the Internet.

For more on this, you can read the release from Attorney General Madigan's office, here.

The press release mentions information on where to report this scam at the bottom of the release (link above).