Computersight -

I opened my email and saw one which said it was my bank writing to update my account information. Of course, I want my bank to know where I am, my telephone number and other important information. Thus, I opened the email.

It appeared to be from my bank. It was from their national headquarters rather than from my local branch. They asked me to verify my name, my address and phone number. They then asked me to change my pass phrase for the Internet access. They said it should be changed every few months to prevent others from accessing my banking information. They asked me to type in my account log on word plus my current password. Then, they asked me to type in a new password of eight characters including at least one numeric character. After I put on the information and pressed “Send”, I received a new email response thanking me for updating my information. A note said that the new password would be activated at the end of the business day.

Relieved, I recorded the new password on my personal records so I would not forget it. I did not try to use the new password until the next day.

When I checked my online account balance the next day, I was horrified. First of all, the new password did not work. I decided to go back to the old password. The account opened and showed an account balance which was much lower than I expected. When I checked the detailed daily record of the account, I saw that someone had withdrawn several hundred dollars from my account.

Rather than sending an email, I went to my local bank branch to complain. They said it was probably a scam email that I had responded to. They told me that their bank never sends emails of that type. They allowed me to use a computer in their office to log into my email account. In the “trash” folder, I found the email that I had responded to. In the “sent” folder was a copy of the information that I had sent the day before.

The officer in the bank pointed out to me that the return address on the email was not to their bank but to a strange-looking email address, one that I had never seen before. They had me fill out a report of the scam that had sucked me in although they told me that it was unlikely that the culprit would be discovered as he probably changed to another email address overnight.

I write this to offer suggestions to other people who receive emails from their banks. You should check the email address the sender used. Also, you should contact your bank rather than respond to an email. If the bank wants new and updated information about you, you should provide it in their office instead of in an email.

I have recently noticed that my “spam” folder of my email account sometimes has emails from many banks, not just the bank where I have an account. It appears that the phisher, the person who is trying to get people to do stupid things such as I did, uses many bank names in hopes of finding people who have accounts in those banks. This technique used by unscrupulous people is referred to as phishing. They are sending out thousands of emails and expect some people to fall for the scam, just as I did.