Online Oprah Offer Too Good to Be True

CHICAGO, Nov. 22, 2006 — -- The offer sounds too good to be true.

An online invitation offers tickets to the famed Oprah Winfrey holiday show, where audience members walk away with thousands of dollars worth of gifts.

The only problem: The invitation is actually a scam.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has issued a nationwide alert, warning that e-mailed invitations promising tickets to a Christmas taping of the "Oprah Winfrey Show" are actually a "phishing" scam by clever online criminals.

"This scam takes advantage of Oprah's worldwide base of fans, and the e-mail looks surprisingly authentic," said Cara Smith, a spokeswoman for the attorney general.

Phishing scams have become fairly common. They usually involve unsolicited authentic-looking e-mails that ask consumers to provide sensitive personal information.

Some require recipients to verify or update personal bank or credit card information.

The results can be disastrous.

"Once someone has sent money or given up personal information, it's difficult to put that genie back in the bottle," Smith said.

In this case, the e-mailed "invitation" offered recipients the opportunity to buy "VIP Guest Seat" tickets to the show for anywhere from $550 to $950.

In return, the fake e-mail promised that ticket-holders would receive "gifts and cash rewards of up to $50-thousand."

Recipients were then asked to provide their name, address, age and profession, and given instructions on how to wire the money to an unknown third party.

"It's a very enticing offer," said Smith, who says attorneys for Winfrey's Harpo Productions alerted her office to the scam.

The "Oprah Winfrey Show," taped in Chicago, doesn't sell tickets. Fans reserve the coveted seats in advance -- for free.

No one is certain how widespread this scam has become, but the attorney general's office is warning people who may have sent money or submitted financial information in response to the invitation to monitor their personal accounts for suspicious activity and to contact police or their state's attorney general's office immediately.