Nyah, nyah they didn't scam me!

[hrj]

My friends, this is how they do it -- remember and be paranoidly vigilant.

You know how I had my Wells Fargo credit card cancelled and replaced after the burglary? Well, today I got an e-mail purporting to be from Wells Fargo saying they're concerned about unusual activity on my account and I need to fax them all my personal and account information to verify my identity or they'll cancel my account.

Yeah, right. Other than my knee-jerk assumption of fraud, what were the clues? Well, once you pull up "view source code", the e-mail address of mine that they're sending it to was harvested off my web site and is clearly one I would never have given to my bank. And the area code for the fax number is a toll number in New Jersey, not the expected toll-free number. And, oh yeah, what was the other problem with their approach? I'M NOT STUPID!

Of course, I get dozens of phishing spams like this every month -- hundreds in a year. Most are instantly recognizable as such because they're for companies I don't have any dealings with. But remember: pure chance means that they're eventually going to hit one you do. And like any good "cold reader", the bait is vague enough yet specific enough that if they get a chance hit on your immediate circumstances, you supply the rest of the scenario in your head. There is absolutely no reason to suppose this scam e-mail has any connection to my burglary. It doesn't need to. They shotgun this thing out to hundreds of thousands of e-mail addresses and all they need is one or two people who have recently lost a Wells Fargo credit card who will panic and respond without thinking things through.

Now to see if Wells Fargo has a fraud reporting e-ddress I can forward it to.

Comments

[joycebre.livejournal.com]

they actually called me and froze my card for me when someone in Hong Kong started using it. When i called them back and said duh, how could I call you from CA if I were in Hong Kong, they fixed everything. Much as I think they're an evil bank, I was impressed that they took the initiative and took care of this.

[duchessletitia.livejournal.com]

This is something that is sponsored by Visa and MasterCard. They have programs that watch activity and notify the Banks when they detect unusual transactions. We get these all day and most turn out to be fraud.

It is a good idea to notify your Credit Card companies when you go on vacation. It can be embarrassing when your card does not work because the Bank thinks it might not be you.

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

It is weird to get one of these calls, but I prefer it to there being a real problem. I actually was the one using my card once, but I ordered something from a German company, and that set off alarm bells at the bank, who called me. I told them that yes, indeed, that was me, and everything was fine.

[etfb.livejournal.com]

Shortly after I got my first credit card, I bought something online (this being the reason I got one in the first place, since in Australia it's very rare to find a shop without a debit card processing facility, so credit cards are redundant for day-to-day shopping) -- then Visa called me up to query a Canberra person buying a couple of hundred dollars of stuff in Melbourne, about eight hours away by car. I carefully explained that the young people nowadays have this thing called THE INTERNET and that it's not always local...