Fraudulent emails

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Fraudulent emails
6
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 11:51am

I'm not sure if anyone has posted anything about this yet or not, but I wanted to share something that has happened to me in the last month.
I keep getting Security emails from my bank and from my ISP, asking me to verify all my account information. I have never been notified by my bank via email before, and it looked completely legit, but I called the bank to be sure. They told me not to give out any info whatsoever, that it was a fraudulent email and to report it via the bank website. I received an email like this also from my ISP, and I have not responded to it. It looks like those fraud folks are becoming more and more fancy with their "legit" emails.
So be careful and call your bank or account to verify whether or not you should respond to this.....that's a no-brainer, really, but the emails really looked like they came from the bank down to the logo and text font. Weird!

cheers!
slojuly

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
In reply to: slojuly
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 12:55pm
I have gotten the same emails stating that if I didn't confirm my information in the next 24 hours they would freeze my account. Interestingly enough though, it was from a bank that I don't even do business with. They have sent the same mail to me now about 5 times, I just delete it each time. Scary though, how easily someone can get your information. Yikes!
~leanne

~leanne

deciding to be happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect, but that you had decided to look beyond the imp

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-18-2004
In reply to: slojuly
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 1:08pm

I have gotten emails like that from banks I don't bank with. I contacted my ISP and sent it to their fraud department. Intrestingly, two of the emails weren't to my addy. They started off like mine, but then the last few letters before the @ were completely different.

For future reference: It was in the newspaper this weekend, if you receive emails like that forward them to fraud@uce.gov. They are the government source for fraudulent emails and will track the senders and if necessary prosecute.

HTH,
Kellie

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-07-2003
In reply to: slojuly
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 1:24pm

I know, I've gotten these too. My own bank has gone so far as to put a statement on their own website saying that NOBODY from the bank will EVER contact you by email, phone, fax, or mail, and ask for your acct info.

I use Paypal too and I got an email from them (or someone pretending to be them) once asking me to verify my password. LOL - ya right! There's no logical reason why any legit online institution would need you to do such a thing. I found out later that, sure enough, it was a total fake. I wonder how many poor gullible people out there actually responded to it.

NEVER GIVE YOUR INFO TO ANYONE UNLESS YOU ARE THE ONE INITIALLIZING CONTACT!









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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-23-2004
In reply to: slojuly
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 2:50pm

I've been getting them, too.

It's really funny because what happened is we paid off our vehicle loan at Suntrust Bank, received the title and everything (yay! another one bites the dust!) . . . and then, we kept getting this very legit looking email to verify our account info. "Someone's tried to access your account, blah, blah, blah ...".
Now the only account we have at Suntrust is one more vehicle loan but the email was worded as if we needed to do this immediately to protect our checking, savings, or a line of credit. I ignored them all. After all, the bank has my address . . . they just mailed me the title to our truck ;)
I'm thinking, "Dude, if somebody really wants to access my loan on the car, great let them send a payment or two" LOL.
I deleted them all, blocked sender about 2 weeks ago and still haven't received the first piece of correspondence from Suntrust. Very suspicious, isn't it?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-23-2004
In reply to: slojuly
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 2:56pm

Oh, yeah, I forgot about Paypal - I've been getting those, too. In addition, to Suntrust Bank, I've gotten several from Paypal. We're going to "freeze" your account. Well, I've just deleted the heck out of them, because as part of our debt reduction plan, I agreed to give up Ebay (the hubby gave up antiquing) so freezing my Paypal would be just fabulous for me. Except, the very interesting fact in this is I actually closed this account months ago, so what the heck!

Also, I've gotten emails "Please verify your Ebay account information of we'll suspend it." Please, please, please do. That's just what I want.

These are bad, bad emails!

Scary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
In reply to: slojuly
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 3:04pm

That's exactly it...SunTrust is my bank, too, and this is where it came from. Those emails sure looked legit. When I forwarded those emails to the fraud dept like the bank told me to do, the email address that sent the fraud email was obviously not professional. It's very scary and suspicious the lengths criminals go to.

cheers,
slojuly