Phishing Attack on Bank Account Charges Client’s $ 3689

Amidst the reports of bank accounts being attacked by phishers, a Cape Town man has stated that he was forced to threaten the staff of the bank staff with a criminal charge in order to recuperate $ 3689 he had lost by a different kind of internet scam, as reported by IOL on March 28, 2007.

Keith Brook, a resident of Durbanville, said on March 27 2007 that it's been weeks since he accessed his Internet account with First National Bank. He continued that he had received a bank SMS two weeks before, which stated that money had been transferred from his account. While the truth was that his computer had been lying disconnected for months.

According to Keith, within a few minutes he got another SMS stating the money had been transferred to another account. Third similar SMS confirmed the same. Keith Brook told that he could recover the money after 13 days of the entire incident, when he threatened to take some of the bank employees to police. This was published by Crime a Research on March 28, 2007.

FNB representative Bonny Feldman said that though it didn't look like a phishing scam, however an inquiry was underway. The representative informed its clients by giving some guidelines.

There had been an increase in Internet frauds worldwide over the past twelve months, as per FNB's recent statement. The bank has suggested to its customers that they shouldn't access the bank's site via a link. It's better to type the address in the address bar of Internet browser. Also, the bank has always been asking its clients to stay alert about email messages that suddenly appear in their inbox and seek personal information about them.

In a recent case of email fraud, Ismail Vawda - a Durban real estate agent withdrew cash from a local ATM, he wasn't ready for the shockingly surprising bank balance he was greeted with. Thousands of rands vanished from his account.

Vawda said that he got an email, apparently coming from the FNB. The email sought the details about his Internet login. Unwary of the fraud, he simply submitted all information the email asked him to key in.

Vadwa went on to say that afterwards this he started to receive text messages @ 5-8 per day, even when he was far from any computer. The messages informed him that he'd successfully logged in to the online banking, as per the reports from Themercury in the 3rd week of March 2007.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 4/6/2007