Please be aware.....again!

[Benny24]

Hi all just another quickie.....

I received the below e-mail this evening from Barclays Bank, the mail had all their official logo's, writing etc. etc. and the link takes you through to the Barclays web site.

BUT

The big mistake is that I am not a barclay's customer, never have been. I called the bank concerned that someone may well have set up an account having obtained my details, but was told this is a new scam being sent out. It is a trap for "real" Barclays customers to enter their info, and it's actually being collected by fraudsters.

Please be aware of this and if you recieve this e-mail being a Barclays customer or not please forward it to internetsecurity@barclays.co.uk
and delete it.

For once a REAL SCAM! (although a second one in a week for me!!)

Benny
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Barclays Customer,



We Hereby notify you that Your Account has been suspended due to unauthorised activities we noticed going on in your account. Due to this we advice you to VERIFY your account to clearify you as the legitimate owner of this barclays online account by clicking the following link.

Note: you will be asked to provide the following details :
1 Surname
2 Membership number
3 Five-digit passcode
4 memorable word.

At Barclays we strive to ensure the safety of our coustmers and maintain our high quality standard.





Security Department
Barclays Bank PLC.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.

[pepsi]

Benny, I seem to receive these regularly and like you I am not a Barclays customer.

[Pegasus928]

This isn't a new scam and has been around for a few years now.
It is known as phishing (I think thats how you spell it), is run mainly by people in the African countries and was responsible for about £23 million pounds worth of fraud last year, and that is double what it was the year before.
So it seems people aren't getting the message about not replying to any e-mails that specifically ask for usernames, passwords or any other personal information.
E-mails I have received along this line have been from most of the major banks, ebay and even a catalogue company that I never heard of.

It would probably be a good idea to delete the link in the above post. Someone may click on it accidently - especially if they see it in their computers history and mistake it for the real site - and inadvertently give these low lifes all the information they need.

[Andy & Arlene]

There's also another scam for the Alliance & Leicester going about as well, in the same form as the Barclays one.

[andrewandcarole]

These scams purporting to be from banks should always be deleted (or forwarded on to the fraud departent of the bank concerned if you want).

There are several doing the rounds at the moment, supposedly from different banks. These fraudsters work on the assumption that at some point they will hit on someone who has an account with that bank and will complete the information requested.

I work for a bank.

NEVER NEVER NEVER give information either over the internet or telephone to someone purporting to be your bank - no matter how plausible it seems.

The bank will NOT contact you and ask for informations like this. Why would they - they already know it! They will also NEVER ask you to identify yourself by giving a PIN number or internet passcode. They will never ask you for your internet login details anywhere other than their usual bona fide online banking site.

If you receive a phone call then terminate the call and phone them back on the number you hold. The real bank will fully understand why you would do this.

Carole

[pieman790]

We must get at least 2 of these a week from different banks. I never reply to any of them as the bank i am with only send secure e mails via my online banking service.
The only advice i would say is that never click on a link provided in a e mail from a bank,Pay Pal, go directly to the web page and login as normal.
Banks will never ask you to confirm full security details over the net.

[becbecs]

We had an email from HSBC yesterday saying that they wanted to check our security details for our bank account, fortunatly we don't bank with them anyway. Plus banks say that they would never email their customers to check bank details.

[wrpac00]

I think it's every bank in the UK and US[msnscared] It gets a bit obvious when I go into my 'Bulk' folder (where all the spam goes) and there are 4 or 5 from the same bank.

[Southsider]

I have received these too over the last few days, I am sure a lot of people do fall for it though[msnsad]

[Homer]

Any I get business or personal I forward to fraud.alert@met.police.uk

You will need to include the header as well (right click on the message in yiur inbox select options) and they will report it to the ISP/Mail company that is concerned.

[brizzle]

Good news is that the new Internet Explorer 7 has built in phishing protection.

You can if you want get a beta version from the microsoft site.
I've installed it and it seems rather nice and no bugs encountered as yet.

Includes some nice features (that have been around in other browsers to be honest) like tabbed browsing rather than loads of new windows, rss capability built in and the facility to have more than one home page (so you can have orlandovillas.com, bbc.co.uk and google open automatically when you start your browser).
Good if you are used to Internet Explorer and don't fancy trying Firefox etc..

[Ray&Sarah]

We get these e-mails from several different "banks" every week, they never seem to give up do they.:(

[andrewandcarole]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Ray&Sarah
We get these e-mails from several different "banks" every week, they never seem to give up do they.:(
[/quote]

I guess because people keep falling for it!

Carole

[MarkJan]

If only 1 in 10,000 fall for it, the payout could be huge. Delete them all, that includes Paypal also. If you are concerned, logon to your account through IE or whatever you use. Do not click on any link in these emails.

[appinlad]

Hi there I had this email arrive yesterday and don't have a Barclay's account. The giveaway on these is the bad spelling e.g. Barkcays ! As long as everyone remembers that banks do not ask for your account details etc in emails there is no danger. Good advice also is to have uptodate virus and spyware protection - especially if using Windows.