A new phishing scam purporting to be from the Elizabethton Federal Savings Bank in Northeast Tennessee, USA, is trying to trick the bank's customers into disclosing their banking information, as reported by ElizabethtonStar on May 9, 2008.
According to officials at the bank, over 100 Carter County residents received e-mails supposedly from the organization during the 1st week of May 2008. The e-mails sent out carrying a false message supposedly from the Elizabethton Federal Savings Bank.
These e-mails tells the recipients that they comprise the people selected to answer a membership satisfaction poll, and would receive $299.99 in their savings accounts, if they provide the answers to the 'easy and quick 9-question survey.'
But when the recipients complete the survey on a special Website, the site asks them to provide their 16-digit debit card number alongwith the expiration data so that the promised sum could be deposited to their account. Meanwhile, the bank said that the offer seems so attractive that it can hardly be true. Thus, it is bound to be a phishing campaign tricking consumers into revealing personal banking details.
However, officials of the bank said that the bank never contacts its customers to seek this kind of information. They also said that it is like someone approaching the customers unexpectedly and inquiring about their social security number, warning that such queries should never be answered.
Elizabethton Federal and other local monetary organizations have been fighting different forms of phishing schemes for over a year, ranging from dishonest e-mails with phony messages to false automated phone calls that contact customers in their residences.
Financial organizations, across the US, have been increasingly reporting phishing attacks similar to the one in the discussion. According to executives of the banks, they have been suffering from an alarming rise in all types of phishing with at least 5-10 phishing attempts per day.
Nonetheless, the IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center), which is an online alliance between the National White Collar Crime Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation tracks and examines crimes committed on the Internet. In 2007, they reported that American lost $239 Million from Internet fraud.
