At least once a week, I receive e-mail messages that my bank account is on security alert and I must immediately update all my personal financial information. The only thing is, I’ve never even heard of Yakima Credit Union or United First Bank, let alone opened an account there.
With equal frequency, I have relatives who die and leave me millions. I learn of their passing and unclaimed estates via an e-mail message. All I need to do is to give a lawyer in England all my banking information, via e-mail, to secure the funds properly. The only thing is ... I’ve never heard of Uncle Mark, Earl of Kormandy.
Unfortunately, I don’t have enough money to have bank accounts all over the place, nor is my family large or wealthy enough to have long-lost extravagantly rich relatives. This I know to be true.
What blows me away is how some of these messages, particularly the banking alerts, look so professional, valid and convincing. Have you ever been compelled to key in your account numbers to ensure your savings won’t be compromised?
Knowing fraud is everywhere, particularly pounding people daily through e-mail, I contacted our self-storage legal expert, Jeffrey Greenberger, for some insights. Here’s what Jeff had to say:
With so much identity theft and bank fraud going around these days, it is critical that you never respond to an e-mail request to provide personal information in response to an e-mail from a bank or credit card company. Your bank will never ask you to verify information by e-mail.
Further, do not click on any link that allegedly takes you to your bank's secured website. The thieves can set up a fake website that looks like your bank's website, and even appears to be your bank's domain name in the address line. Even if the link directs you to your bank's real website, by clicking on the link you may, unbeknownst to you, have loaded a piece of software that tracks your keystrokes, thus you are on your bank's legitimate website and the thief is recording your user ID and password, to be used later, logging in as you.
The only way you should ever give information, including your online password, to your bank is by typing in the web address yourself, preferably set it as one of your favorites, and only link to your bank's website though that favorite link.
Also be careful of calls from your bank. The person calling from the bank or credit card company ought to be able to tell you about the account he is calling about; you should not have to tell him. You ought to be able to get a call-back number, call the institution, and get a legitimate sounding answer before you discuss anything. Feel free to ask the person calling to verify the last few charges you made on your account or checks you wrote to verify he/she is from your financial institution before talking to that person.
In Cincinnati, the local Better Business Bureau, which ought to know better, answered one of these calls and gave financial information away to an identity thief. If it can make this kind of mistake, you know you can too, so be ever vigilant.
Jeff is an attorney with Katz, Greenberger & Norton LLP in Cincinnati. He specializes in self-storage issues, many of which he has written about in industry publications and presented at self-storage conferences. He also works with ISS on producing the monthly Legal Learning Webinar Series.
In your own best interest, read as much as you can about detecting e-mail scams. You can even access a consumer alert issued by the Federal Trade Commission.