way OT but important: phishing

riredale wrote on 7/15/2005, 7:43 PM
Some of you may have already seen this scam: you get a notification by email that the bank has recorded suspicious activity on your account, and the account has been locked until you click on the link provided and verify your account numbers.

I got one of these today for "Bank of the West." Two things aroused my suspicions:

(1) the idiot who composed the very official-looking document called it a "notifycation" rather than "notification", and

(2) I don't have an account with that bank.

When I went to the link provided, the login page was:

http://bankoffhewest.com/login

Going to the official site, I found the login was:

http://bankofthewest.com/login

See any difference?


So the moral of the story is to NEVER give out confidential information in response to an email. Call them or go to the normal home page and use the login there.

(Don't feel badly if you can't see any difference--I studied the URL ten times until I noticed the first one was for "bank off he west." Pretty clever.

Comments

Liam_Vegas wrote on 7/15/2005, 7:49 PM
and rule number one... NEVER click on the URL in one of these emails. They very often have spyware / trogans and other stuff that attempt to install on your computer simply by visiting their sites.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/15/2005, 8:25 PM
i just ignore them. if it's a real problem they won't give me a login link, they'll just tell me to log in on their home page (like my CC company).
busterkeaton wrote on 7/15/2005, 10:28 PM
I have gotten a couple of those relating to Ebay or Paypal. Usually the first thing I do is google the subject line. Usually there is a warning page up somewhere.

You can also forward the document to real institution and ask them what is up with it. For ebay, I believe it is spoof@ebay.com.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 7/15/2005, 11:47 PM
> and rule number one... NEVER click on the URL in one of these emails.

Rule #2: Never click ANYWHERE on these emails. I got one once that was entirely a GIF file. So if you clicked anywhere on the text (not just the URL) you were redirected to the bogus site. Any email from a bank is best left alone. Call the bank on the phone if you think there is a real problem.

~jr
JJKizak wrote on 7/16/2005, 5:23 AM
Absolutely no legalaties are initiated on "E" mail by anyone except criminals.

JJK
B.Verlik wrote on 7/16/2005, 3:05 PM
I have a Yahoo e-mail address and I must win the British Lottery every other week. I also am, at least 2 to 3 times a week, being asked to help somebody with an unclaimed inheritance of millions of dollars that's about to be claimed by some government. Yahoo seems to keep letting these continue, because every time I get one, it's from a different person. Marking it as Spam doesn't work very well.
winrockpost wrote on 7/16/2005, 3:43 PM
The sad thing is someone, somewhere falls for these things, otherwise they would go away . The cons dont bother me as much as the viagra stuff i get on a daily basis. Like someones trying to tell me something. shhheeze
TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/16/2005, 6:51 PM
from a wife/gf maybe? Check the headers!! :)

after while you just start to ignore them.

One piece of mail that I CAN'T get rid of is some microsoft e-mail... I suscribed to it back in '98 when I got windows '98 but I can't unsubscribe because you need an MSN username/password (when I signed on that didn't exist). So, I got one, but it doesn't say I'm on the list. So I can't unsubscribe (the unsubscribe link in the mail takes you to the MSN site). I even e-mailed MS to no avail.

I mark it as spam now in Yahoo.