AOL scammer hooked by police

One 'phisher' convicted of scamming AOL customers out of their credit card details has landed more than she bargained for – a spell in jail.

The 55-year-old Virginia woman was sentenced by a local court this week to 46 months in prison after phishing for credit card details by sending out fake emails claiming to come from AOL's billing department.

The phisher, Helen Carr, was originally an email marketer who earned her income by sending out legal bulk mail and receiving a payment for every email that was responded to. After meeting would-be scammer George Patterson online, the pair embarked on the phishing scam.

Records seized from the pair's computers showed that they had credit card details from 429 people, although when Carr got wind that the authorities were on her tail, she deleted records from her computer. Investigators believe the phishers' antics could have netted them over 1,000 credit cards to play with.

The scam was going swimmingly until the spam landed in the wrong inbox. An FBI agent's.

The agent wasn't suckered in by the scam email and an investigation was launched, bringing the year-long scam to an end.

Patterson, 22, was sentenced to 37 months in jail in summer 2003.