Had you fallen for the scam, you would have just been robbed.

According to Louis M. Reigel, the FBI's Assistant Director, Cyber Division, "There are more than 4,000 Katrina-related websites registered now, more than four times the number we saw just last week. Many of them may be legitimate, but fraudulent ones are popping up faster than we can pound them down."

This is only the latest in a long running problem. The Anti-Phishing Working Group reports that scammers launch some 14,000 schemes a month to lure you into giving away your money. What's worse, about five percent of email users actually respond to the faked messages.

These aren't just messages apparently from the American Red Cross. I just checked my Junk Email folder and I have hundreds of messages from PayPal, Bank of America, Microsoft, VISA, and others, all asking me to log in and confirm my account. Had I responded to any of them, I'd be a very unhappy camper right about now.

So here's where we get to the warnings:

Do not, do not, DO NOT give your personal information away in response to an email message..

Do not do it in response to a request for account information from a bank, from PayPal, from eBay, from Microsoft, or from the American Red Cross. These (and nearly all other major companies) will not ask you for personal information from an email message. And if they do, don't click on the link to respond.

Phishing activity has more than doubled in the last six months and is likely to get worse over time. Microsoft and others are working on some level of defense, including ways to make sure an email message can be verified to come from its sender. But these plans are still somewhat in the future and are likely to have potential loopholes.

Many helpful sites, including the FBI, recommend reporting phishing attempts and recommend you contact the Federal Trade Commission. We don't necessarily recommend that practice. If you've been ripped off, there's very little chance that a letter to the FTC will get your money back. The best defense is to avoid clicking those emails. Do not give away your private information. Period.

Francine Otterson is the President of the San Diego Outlook User Group and a Microsoft Outlook MVP. She has been in the IT industry for over 10 years, providing technical support, software customization solutions and training in corporate settings, and as a consultant. She balances her work around her daughter and husband in sunny San Diego, California.