Another E-Mail Scam

[Elarski]

Just checked e-mail to find a warning from Wachovia Bank not to use their wire transfer, or online transfer services until you validate your account information online. Three things: 1) Banks don't ask for you to validate your account information online. 2)The email address your asked to reply to isn't even from Wachovia's website. 3) I'm not even a Wachovia Customer!

I forwarded the e-mail to Wachovia's Security Division.

Just a heads up. Never hurts to be too careful.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Funny think about email spam programs -- I used to get those supposedly from a few banks, but after I identified them as spam, they go directly to my spam file and I don't see them anymore. I bet they still send them to me!

Good move telling the bank, though. I do that each time I get hit, even though I know that's the last time I'll see it.

 

[bobofish]

Another thing to remember is to never click on a link in an email that looks like it came from your bank.

Really good scammers set up those links to look and act just like your banking website, steal your info, and then run for the hills with the loot. Sometimes they even have the courtesy to redirect you to the actual bank site after they've pilfered your login info.

The sad thing is that some banks still send emails with links in them.

What could even be worse is that some really nasty spyware will redirect addresses you type in to corrupted or made up links that look like the real thing. So you'll think you're being smart and type up wamu.com and the thing will send you to wamuzu.com or something and steal your info. Run a spyware scanner.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Exactly. The way to be safe is to bookmark your business websites or keep a list of them off the computer, and type them into your browser window to ask about a suspicious (just about any) email.