Website Spoofing and Phishing

Website spoofing is a scam that attempts to get you to enter personal information or passwords by mimicking a trusted site. Spoofed sites, known as microsites, can be very convincing and appear to be actual financial institution sites. Scammers use logos, fonts and colors of existing, legitimate sites to make their microsite look realistic.

Phishing is another scam that uses spam (e-mail) or pop-up messages to deceive you into disclosing your credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security number, passwords, or other sensitive information.

Victims of these scams usually receive e-mails instructing them to login to their online service to reactivate their account information. These e-mails usually contain a bogus link to the microsite which resembles their institutions own page. Account holders are then tricked into providing personal information and passwords to the illegal site owners.

These scams are intended to take advantage of the unsuspecting account holder. To protect your account and sign on information from possible fraud, keep these tips in mind:

• Be suspicious of e-mails that indicate your account has been frozen. Do not respond to e-mails concerning frozen accounts due to suspicion of fraud. Legitimate financial institutions will contact account holders by phone or regular mail.
  
• Don't follow links to financial institutions that are embedded in e-mail messages. Always type the address yourself. Many scammers will use links to domain names that are similar to the actual site. By entering the normal address yourself, you will not be taken to a spoofed site.
  
• If you receive an unexpected e-mail from your financial institution, call them to verify that the e-mail is legitimate. Always notify your financial institution if you receive suspicious e-mail or phone inquiries.