Email Scams hitting closer to home
Dear Customer,
This is your official notification from South Side Bank that the service listed below
will be deactivated and deleted if not renewed immediately. Previous notifications have
been sent to the Billing Contact assigned to this account. As the Primary Contact, you
must renew the service listed below or it will be deactivated and deleted.
will be deactivated and deleted if not renewed immediately. Previous notifications have
been sent to the Billing Contact assigned to this account. As the Primary Contact, you
must renew the service listed below or it will be deactivated and deleted.
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I get alot of spam, as do most people, trying to fool me into giving up my password or account information, but it usually references a large national bank so I found it odd that I would get spammed with a local bank. The email was well done, including the South Side Bank logo and all. Out of sheer curiousity, I followed the link (I know that’s a no-no) which went led to southsidelbank dot com. To my surprise, Firefox popped up a warning informing me that this is a spoof site trying to trick me into giving up my account information.
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Anyone else get this email? Fascinating, isn’t it? The spammers can trace my email down to my town and assault me with a small local bank which prides themselves on trust, therefore giving the email that much more validity.
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BTW- I don’t have an account with South Side Bank.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:22 am
I got it, too. I don’t have a South Side Bank account either. It makes me think that whoever the spammer is, he or she is local.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:56 am
You should let South Side bank know about it.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Also… the term for those sorts of e-mail efforts is ‘Phishing’.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Wow. That’s scary. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t fall for such a sceme, but when I was 20, who knows?
I hope they catch the crook.
I was the victim of identity theft when I was much younger and, while it didn’t end up costing me money, it was a pain to clear up. Lots of time, phone calls, etc.
Jennifer
March 30th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
I just received a phone call that came up on my caller ID as “Idaho Call 208-629-5001″. The message left on the machine said “South Side Bank trust holder, we have a question regarding your account” and then it left a 800 number to call.
As far as I know, we don’t have a South Side trust.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
And I tried reverse lookup on the online white pages and it said the Idaho number is unlisted.
March 30th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Just for fun, I called the 800 number. The first automated prompt wanted the 16 digit number off my ATM card. Niiiiiice.
I pity anyone who falls for this one.
I think I’ll be forwarding this info to Lisa Madigan’s office.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Yup, I got the southside bank e-mail too. I get stuff like that all the time. I think “sucker” is metatagged in my e-mail somewhere. I deleted it right away. Wasn’t fooled for a nano-second. By the way, southsidebank.com is not a web address.
April 1st, 2007 at 10:36 am
Just received the “questions regarding your account” phone call. Will call South Side monday and let them know about it. Anyone have the 800 number? I didn’t listen to it that far.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:05 am
208 629 5001 is the phone number for Debt Solutions. I’m not sure if they’d be involved in anything like this, or if their number is being misused, but Google the number (with spaces, without dashes)and you’ll see, they have their own reputation problems.