Phisher’s Misuse Bank's Name To Dupe Clients

The officials of the "Bank of Travelers Rest", based in Greenville, South Carolina, have alerted people that the bank's name is being misused in a phishing scam, as reported by WYFF4.COM on April 4, 2008.

The Sheriff's Office at Greenville County circulated a statement cautioning that the bank's identity is being misused in a phishing message. The Sheriff's Office at Greenville County alleges that phisher is making use of the Bank of Travelers Rest's name while trying to pull an innovative "phishing" scheme in the county.

"Phishing" is a sophisticated scam that utilizes unsolicited or Pop-up advertising e-mails to trick consumers into revealing their credit card and banking details, Social Security number, passcodes or some other type of private data. Identity theft is the aim of this fraudulent messages scam.

As per the bank, the fake e-mail asked receivers for personal data. This fake email that has been released purports to have identified illegal activity on a clients' debit card though it isn't at all associated with the bank.

Officials of the bank informed the Sheriff's Office that the bank's name and letterhead is being misused in this fraud. The scam would ask people to give their real debit card details over the telephone.

But, the wording of the message was poor and there were several grammatical errors in the message, said the executives. Officials claimed that though they utilize email as a kind of contact, but they don't ever request clients to give their particulars in this manner over the Internet. However, phishers who wish to exploit the stolen data to perpetrate offenses such as identity theft are transmitting these messages.

The bank authorities have advised clients that anybody who gets the e-mail is cautioned to ignore it and refrain from calling up any of the given telephone numbers.

Of late, phishing strikes on the bank has risen quickly and a number of clients of Huddersfield's Halifax bank were also getting phishing messages in the end of March 2008. Clients were informing of receiving a minimum of one message per day in their inboxes, claiming to be from the Halifax bank.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/10/2008