Paleo Pete
08-13-2004, 01:15 AM
I'm sure many of you aware of this, but I thought a notification might be a good idea anyway, might save one or three of our viewers.
I've received email scams from US Bank and CitiBank in the past couple of days, wanting me to click a link to "confirm your data"...I don't have an account with either, so I have no data to confirm, and I don't think either bank would expect customers to do this by email to begin with.
The one from US Bank was quite obvious, "As the Technical service of bank have been updating..." Both are gif files, can't copy & paste the text, it's a picture.
Both also have nonsense text in the headers, I'm not sure if it shows up in Windows or not, I'm looking at a Linux box. Filenames are conjugacy.GIF [Citibank scam] and bhutan.GIF
If you receive an email of this nature, DO NOT, I strongly repeat [u]DO NOT click that link.
I'll try to attach a picture of one of them, both are quite similar. These scams are getting more common, if you receive one, contact the bank about it and don't even think about giving any website your personal information. If the bank needs it, they will most likely contact you by mail or phone, and have you come to their local branch in person to deal with it.
I've also forwarded copies of both of these scam emails to uce@ftc.gov which is the spam email address set up by the Federal Trade Commission.
Urban Legends (http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_us_bank_scam.htm) has a good article about an earlier version of this scam. The one copied in that article was a text based, possibly html. This one is a gif picture file that looks exactly like a legitimate email from the bank it is supposed to be from. The only way to tell it's a scam is by knowing that these banks WILL NOT ask you to submit personal information by email, then by looking it up.
Again, if in doubt, CALL YOUR BANK.
From the US Bank website Security Standards (https://www4.usbank.com/internetBanking/en_us/info/BrowserRequirementsOut.jsp)
On the other hand, for security reasons, Passwords are encrypted and are known only to the user. No one at U.S. Bank will ever need to know your Password, and you should never furnish it to anyone who claims to represent U.S. Bank.
This from their Privacy Pledge (http://usbank.com/privacy_pledge.html)
We will never initiate a request for sensitive information from you via email (ie., Social Security Number, Personal ID, Password, PIN or account number). If you receive an email that requests this type of sensitive information, you should be suspicious of it. We strongly suggest that you do not share your Personal ID, Password, PIN or account number with anyone, under any circumstances.
Just knowing those two quotes might save you a lot of trouble...they also have a fraud email link, look it up and forward scam emails to them. It's in the links above. Citibank probably has one too, I haven't looked, but I'm sure they view this issue the same as US Bank.
I've received email scams from US Bank and CitiBank in the past couple of days, wanting me to click a link to "confirm your data"...I don't have an account with either, so I have no data to confirm, and I don't think either bank would expect customers to do this by email to begin with.
The one from US Bank was quite obvious, "As the Technical service of bank have been updating..." Both are gif files, can't copy & paste the text, it's a picture.
Both also have nonsense text in the headers, I'm not sure if it shows up in Windows or not, I'm looking at a Linux box. Filenames are conjugacy.GIF [Citibank scam] and bhutan.GIF
If you receive an email of this nature, DO NOT, I strongly repeat [u]DO NOT click that link.
I'll try to attach a picture of one of them, both are quite similar. These scams are getting more common, if you receive one, contact the bank about it and don't even think about giving any website your personal information. If the bank needs it, they will most likely contact you by mail or phone, and have you come to their local branch in person to deal with it.
I've also forwarded copies of both of these scam emails to uce@ftc.gov which is the spam email address set up by the Federal Trade Commission.
Urban Legends (http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_us_bank_scam.htm) has a good article about an earlier version of this scam. The one copied in that article was a text based, possibly html. This one is a gif picture file that looks exactly like a legitimate email from the bank it is supposed to be from. The only way to tell it's a scam is by knowing that these banks WILL NOT ask you to submit personal information by email, then by looking it up.
Again, if in doubt, CALL YOUR BANK.
From the US Bank website Security Standards (https://www4.usbank.com/internetBanking/en_us/info/BrowserRequirementsOut.jsp)
On the other hand, for security reasons, Passwords are encrypted and are known only to the user. No one at U.S. Bank will ever need to know your Password, and you should never furnish it to anyone who claims to represent U.S. Bank.
This from their Privacy Pledge (http://usbank.com/privacy_pledge.html)
We will never initiate a request for sensitive information from you via email (ie., Social Security Number, Personal ID, Password, PIN or account number). If you receive an email that requests this type of sensitive information, you should be suspicious of it. We strongly suggest that you do not share your Personal ID, Password, PIN or account number with anyone, under any circumstances.
Just knowing those two quotes might save you a lot of trouble...they also have a fraud email link, look it up and forward scam emails to them. It's in the links above. Citibank probably has one too, I haven't looked, but I'm sure they view this issue the same as US Bank.