When I checked my email this a.m. I had a letter purporting to be from Bank of America. It said that it suspected "unusual activity" on my BofA account on "07/06/2009" and "they" wanted me to click on a link "https://www.bankofamerica.com" in order to "look at you statement" and then I could continue to use my account.
I immediately suspected fraud, simply by the date format. To an American, "07/06" means JULY 6th. [and we're not likely to use a 4 digit year either "09" would have been enough. How could I have had "suspicious activity" on a date which has not yet occurred?
When I rolled my cursor over the alleged BofA site, I noticed in the information area at the bottom of the browser it went to a website that was for "leilarosellaboutique" and it had a com after it then a forward slash, the word "image" and another forward slash and "boa" after that [I don't want to put this in a format anyone will click on in this post.]
I immediately called up Bank of America and reported it -- they had me forward the letter to abuse@bankofamerica.com -- and they informed me that if they HAD noticed unusual activity in an account they would NOT have sent a letter to us, informing us to click on anything.
The email had convincing looking B of A logos, etc.
Don't be fooled -- if you see something similar, contact you own bank and forward anything similar you get to them.
Needless to say, I did not click on the link. But forwarded it, and deleted it, then deleted it from Mail trash.
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5 comments:
Yup! Have had those too, as well as similar messages from other bank including banks I've never heard of in states I've never visited.
Am not with BofA, but the local manager thanked me for the printout of the scam that would be passed along to their security people.
My own bank tells me that this is an on-going thing and that even though the various banks are in competition on most things, they cooperate among themselves on these scams in order to control losses to customers and the banks themselves.
We regularly get emails like that. I have always forwarded them to the banks because I know that the bank will never ask me to go to a site and enter sensitive information.
Thnx for the heads-up.
Son's of Bitches!!!
You said it, Tara. I posted that as a reminder/warning to others.
But that wrong date format was especially glaring.
BTW, got a letter back from the "abuse" people and they confirmed that they (along with other banks) would NEVER have you go to anyother website and click to "confirm things." And they mentioned fraudsters try to get you to do it so that your account "won't be suspended from use."
Even without the date format screw up, I wouldn't have clicked it,and would have called the bank, but the fraudsters are betting that some percentage of people larger than "X" would do so, and that's all they'd need.
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