Yahoo Australia targeted by adult dating scam

A copy of the e-mail sighted by ZDNet Australia says that Yahoo Personals adult-oriented After Dark service will shortly be launching a moderated chat room service as part of an effort to promote a range of "IP sex toys", and wants to hire Australians to moderate the channel overnight in the US.

Recipients are advised to send details of proposed employees by urgent return e-mail, and are told payments of up to $US60 an hour can be made into the bank account of their choice. Such inducements are commonly used in online scams, either to access bank account details or as a confidence builder before attempting to seek payments from the recipients.

While many phishing scams are aimed at unwitting banking customers, portal sites such as Yahoo! and MSN, as well as ecommerce sites such as eBay, are also common targets. A recent survey by RSA suggests that phishing activity, while still high, has remained fairly constant in the past year.

A spokesperson for Yahoo7 said that so far, no complaints from customers about the scam had been received. In January, Yahoo relaunched its local operations under the Yahoo7 brand, in partnership with TV network Seven.