Does this sound like an internet scam to you?

shootist16

shootist16

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I get the following email allegedly from Suntrust bank. That catch is I have never had an account there.

Here is the email:

Dear SunTrust customer,

We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your Suntrust Internet Banking account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security of your account and of the Suntrust network is our primary concern. Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily limited access to sensitive account features.

To restore your account access, please take the following steps to ensure that your account has not been compromised:

1. Login to your Suntrust Internet Banking account. In case you are not enrolled for Internet Banking, you will have to use your Social Security Number as both your Personal ID and Password and fill in all the required information, including your name and your account number.

2. Review your recent account history for any unauthorized withdrawals or deposits, and check your account profile to make sure not changes have been made. If any unauthorized activity has taken place on your account, report this to Suntrust staff immediately.

To get started, please click the link below:

https://internetbanking.suntrust.com

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire Suntrust system. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.



Sincerely,

The Suntrust Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your Suntrust account and choose the "Help" link in the header of any page.
 
Yes, especially if you've never had an account with them. This smacks of phishing, IMHO.
 
shootist16 said:
I get the following email allegedly from Suntrust bank. That catch is I have never had an account there.

Here is the email:

Dear SunTrust customer,

We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your Suntrust Internet Banking account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security of your account and of the Suntrust network is our primary concern. Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily limited access to sensitive account features.

To restore your account access, please take the following steps to ensure that your account has not been compromised:

1. Login to your Suntrust Internet Banking account. In case you are not enrolled for Internet Banking, you will have to use your Social Security Number as both your Personal ID and Password and fill in all the required information, including your name and your account number.

2. Review your recent account history for any unauthorized withdrawals or deposits, and check your account profile to make sure not changes have been made. If any unauthorized activity has taken place on your account, report this to Suntrust staff immediately.

To get started, please click the link below:

https://internetbanking.suntrust.com

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire Suntrust system. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.



Sincerely,

The Suntrust Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your Suntrust account and choose the "Help" link in the header of any page.
Click to expand...


When In doubt call the Bank. If you think scam, then best to check.

Paul
 
Thanks for the link. I called Suntrust and they said they NEVER send emails. This is a scam.
 
Oh, absolutely, this is defintely a scam. It's called "phishing."

If you will look at your original e-mail, you will see that while the text says suntrust.com, the actual URL that it links to is something unfamiliar. It is, in fact, a website set up by the scammer. It will look very much like a Suntrust Bank website. They will have carefully copied the look and feel of Suntrust's site (which is not hard to do, you just download Sundtrust's HTML code which any browser can do). The website will ask you to enter your name, address, telephone number, social security number, wife's maiden name, mother maiden name, etc., and also your Suntrust password and account number.

Tomorrow, your Suntrust account will be empty and closed. When you call to complain, they will check their computer and say, "You called us yesterday and closed that account and wired all the money to your account at National Bank of Nigera, acct. #123456" And you will say, "No, I didn't. I don't have an account with National Bank of Nigera!" And they will say, "Oh yes you did! You gave us your name, address, phone number, wife's maiden name, mother's maiden name, and your Suntrust password. It must have been you."

And if you call National Bank of Nigera, they will say, "Account number 123456 was closed must minutes after it was opened, just minutes after $X was transfered to it from SunTrust Bank. The money was transfered out. No, I can not tell you who opened the account; under Nigerian banking law, that is confidential. No, I can't tell you where the money was transfered to; that is also confidential by law. Sorry."

And that will be just the beginning of your identity theft nightmare as the scammer now sells your identification information to another identity theft artist.



Now, you might object, "I really don't have a Suntrust bank acount." Well, a lot of people do. And the Phisher only needs a few hits. Tomorrow, you will get the same e-mail for Chase Manhattan, then Bank of America, etc. If you have an account with a major bank, you will eventually get one that appears to be from your bank.

This is a serious fraud. People who don't understand this are conned out of lots of money via this scam. For the sake of others, please don't ignore these. Instead, use ixquick or your favorite search engine to locate the real SunTrust, or whatever bank, website. On their site you will probably see a link to report fraud (most banks have this on their front page now). This will give you an e-mail address to report this fraud too. If you don't see it on the front page, look for a "contact us" link and see if they have an e-mail there. Otherwise, call their 1-800 number. This only takes a few minutes of your time and it is very important to do it. All banks now have fraud prevention people skilled at figuring these things out and getting the fraudulent website taken down ASAP.
 
If you receive the email through outlook express you can always check the properties and most probably the reply to address is some weird site.

This also happens a lot with ebay accounts. when you click on the link it'll look almost exactly the same as an ebay page but if you look at the properties of the webpage the address is something else.

So be careful.
 
Anything that asks for your social security number is a major red light. Never give that out over e-mail.

~ashes
 
I get these (for "my SunTrust account" ... which i don't havem, of course) every day. I wonder why thosse companies don't take an action themselves and sue the hell out of the spammers/scammer-wannabes.
 
Every major bank now has specialists who investigate these scams and try to get them shut down. All of this comes from overseas from just a few countries where it is very difficult to impossible for thr American banks to sue much less prosecute the scammers.

And here's a question for you: who pays the salaries and the operating expenses for those fraud investigator employees? The answer, of course, is that the bank's customers, basically you and I, do. Even if you don't fall for one of these scams, you are still a victim. Your banking fees are higher and your returns are lower because of these scammers.
 
They really get a lot from you with these scams.
Imagine giving 1 million people the email and only 10% of the people replied. That's still 10k.
Now imagine that from this 10k only 1% of them actually use the same password and what not for all their security stuff. He's got access to 100 people's accounts and whatever.
 
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