Account suspended - multiple password failures
A psuedo follow-up to my Indentity theft via spam and Inventive spam posts, I have yet a few more things to say about the recent onslaught of E-mail spam to watch out for.
On the heels of the Wamu (Washington Mutual) E-mail fakes to get your username and password, it appears that the same people or a very good copycat is now trying it for Huntington online bank. This E-mail fake holds the subject of “Account Suspend - Multiple password failures”.
Again, some ways to protect yourself
Last time we mentioned that merely not answering these types of E-mails is the best way to guard yourself from indentity theft. However, there were some small flaws in the way I worded the other tips.
First of all, the best way to know that your being scammed is whether or not you actually hold an account with these would-be bankers. I do not have a Washington Mutual nor a Huntington online bank account personally, so I instantly knew that these two examples were fakes. As for the Paypal fakes, they sent the E-mails to addresses which I do not have registered with Paypal and they didn’t address me by name - two flags of a fake.
I did mention however that Paypal will never call you Dear Paypal Member. This is true, however some spammers do go through the trouble of adding your name and/or E-mail address to the E-mail message. So you might see Dear Colin or Dear cdevroe@emailaddress.com. These are simply better fakes and should also be ignored.
Not every E-mail is a fake
Not every single E-mail you get from a banking firm or Paypal itself is a fake though. Just use caution when replying to them for any reason. As I stated previously, no banking firm (including Paypal) will ever ask for your username and password via E-mail.
Other examples?
Do you have any other examples of inventive or indentity thieving spam? Please trackback this post, or comment about any E-mails that you’ve gotten which are definitely fakes. Hopefully this will help safeguard a few of our readers.
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