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

[etfb.livejournal.com]

They haven't gotten any less lazy than when I last looked at one of their attempts (http://etfb.livejournal.com/7295.html). Seriously, I find myself thinking that people who fall for this stuff deserve to. Now that you guys have a president-elect who's not embarrassingly mediocre, is it ok to discriminate against people on the grounds of stupidity yet?

[brooksmoses]

I sent the one I got to reportphish@wellsfargo.com.

I also sent it to the Campbell police department, since the fax number I was given was a 408-area-code landline that's on a Campbell exchange. Weird that they're using multiple numbers.

[aastg.livejournal.com]

Some time ago I got an email just like yours, and I called Wells. They had me forward the email to their fraud unit (and were smart enough to make sure I had deleted it out my sent mail afterwards).

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Check with trektone - he works for Wells Fargo. (And my bank just got bought out by them, so it appears I will soon be a WF account holder myself.)

[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.

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

ANY Email that asks you to post a bunch of personal information is a scam/Phishing scheme, etc. Banks don't do this stuff via email. There are plenty of ways to determine if it's a scam. Check the URL of the website that they're sending you to, for starters ... You were definitely right to check. I don't even bother reporting this stuff anymore. It doesn't do any good.