Yahoo Files Suit to Stop Lottery Phishing Scam

Yahoo has filed suit against a group of phishers. Yahoo alleges that the scammers tried to trick Yahoo subscribers into thinking that they had won a prize from Yahoo in an effort to steal their passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information.

According to the Associated Press, Yahoo filed the lawsuit on May 16 in U.S. District Court in New York City under federal trademark law, federal anti-spam law and other state laws. In the lawsuit the company states that the defendants pretended to be Yahoo representatives, sending out e-mails claiming recipients had won prizes ranging from a few thousand to a million dollars and instructed them to click on a link or forward personal information to a “Yahoo lottery coordinator” to get their prize.

Some recipients were instructed to contact another party to arrange for the prize payment, Yahoo said in the filing, and this other party would charge them “hundreds of dollars in various processing and mailing charges in order to complete the payment process.”

Such “phishing” scams are meant to trick consumers into sharing financial information.