How Many Scams Did You Receive this Week?

By Judi Curry

I received the following email today:

   “Dear Client, For your security, We have put a hold on the online access based on the suspicious activity happened today earlier.  That hold was placed by our automated security system. Just to ensure your se4security, we have created a new security forum for your to confirm your identify. You will need to visit our verification page in order to restore the account.  To begin, please select the link below.” BB&T

Yesterday, I received the following email – twice:

“Final Warning:  Dear Customer, It is strongly recommended that you update your account.  There are series of issues about theft of account informations. We have update our security server for the year 2017; enhance your online banking security and protect our customers from online fraud.  Please click here to continue the verification process.”  Bank of America

Two days before I received this message via email:

“Dear Customer, For security reasons a slight restriction has been placed on your Chase Online SM account as during one of our scheduled account maintenance, we noticed some irregularities in some account activities.  Update your online access using secured link below”.  (“Note:  Your account ill be suspended if this update is not carried out now. Suspended accounts will not be able to receive payments, send payments or withdraw funds Online.”)

Five days before that I received this message:

“URGENT – Suspicious Activity Detected on your USAA account –

Upon intensive reviews on your profile.  We have noticed that you need to resolve important security issues on your account to prevent temporal deactivation. It is therefore recommended that you complete this process.  Your security is important to us.  Please click on the reference link below to resolve this issue:” 

And one day before that I received the same communication from Capital One!

There was absolutely no question in my mind that these were scams.

Know why?

Because I do not have accounts at any of these banks! Not USAA, not BofA; not Chase; not Capital One  and I had never heard of BB&T until today.  But how easy it would have been to fall for these scams IF I did have an account with the banks.  They all looked so official.  You have to look closely to see the errors, and errors there are.  All over the place.  (And let me point out something from BBandT.  The “message from the form refers to it as BB&T, yet the email I received from the authentic bank refers to themselves as BBandT).

What I find very interesting is the communication I have received back from the banks, because I notified them all of this phishing scheme.

In spite of receiving THREE messages from Bank of America they did not respond to my abuse request.  Capital One called me to apologize for the problem; I received form letters from Chase; the letter I sent to USAA came back – twice – marked that it could not be delivered. (Isn’t that interesting?) and from BB&T, a company that I never heard of before sent me the following email:

“Good evening and welcome to BBandT!
We appreciate you forwarding the recent fraudulent email you received and we certainly understand your concerns.

Recently, BBandT clients and non-clients have reported receiving similar fraudulent emails. These messages are designed to look like real communications from BBandT and often ask for confidential information. Please note that these emails are not from BBandT and are not legitimate requests. They are examples of phishing – a scam that uses fraudulent email to deceive people into disclosing their account numbers, credit card information, Social Security numbers, User IDs, passwords, and other sensitive information.

Unfortunately, these online fraud attempts are becoming more common. BBandT places the highest priority on protecting confidential client information, monitoring daily activity and reporting suspicious behavior. We are working with the appropriate authorities to identify and disable these fraudulent sites; however, even with advanced technologies and reporting, we are not able to stop all phishing emails from being sent to individuals.

As a reminder, BBandT never uses email to obtain confidential information. If you receive an email you suspect is fraudulent or asks for personal information:

1. DO NOT click on the link. Simply delete the email without responding.

2. If you have clicked on the link and provided personal information, contact BBandT at 800-226-5228 (800-BankBBT).

We invite you visit BBandT Security Central for additional tips and tools to help you protect your information. Learn more at http://www.bbt.com/security

We appreciate you taking the time to make us aware of the emails and thank you for the opportunity to respond to this issue.

If we can provide additional assistance, please e-mail us again.    Thank you for visiting BBT.com and we hope that you enjoy the rest of your day!

Jessica,

BB&T E-Mail Support”

I hope that none of the readers of this column have fallen for this phishing scheme; I hope that if you did you caught the error before your accounts were compromised.  As for me, there are 21 more banks that will probably send me letters in the next few weeks.  BEWARE!