The purpose of phishing scams is to convince people to give away their personal and financial information, usually in the form of an e-mail. The latest scam was received by a spokesperson for the Alachua County Sheriff's Department. In the e-mail he was told Fed-Ex had a package waiting for him that was valued at $800,000. The e-mail stated all he would have to do to receive the package is pay $200, for a "security keeping charge." Recognizing these scams is important, because they aren't going away anytime soon. "It's done, you know, outside of the United States and these countries that it happens from, Nigeria for example, the Gross Domestic Product from these types of scams is huge over there so they have no real desire to shut it down."
If you receive one of these scam e-mails, report it by forwarding it to spam@uce.gov.