The message at the bottom of this page is a great example of phishing.  Simply stated, phishing is "The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft."  The message below claims to be from the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and advises of an attempt by a third party to access my credit union account.  Because of this, my account supposedly has been limited.  To clear that limitation, the message directs me to click on the web link provided where I must complete all checklist items to regain full account access.  When I hovered my computer mouse over the link I saw it goes to http://www.anarchy.co.kr/ which is a web site registered and maintained in Korea.  No doubt that site will look exactly like the real NCUA web site and will ask me things like my credit union account number, password, Social Security number, etc.  Obviously this is vain attempt to steal my identity and clean out my bank account.
 
Does phishing work?  You bet it does.  Just ask the thousands of folks including some federal judges who have been victims of this type of crime.
 
What can you do to prevent being a victim of this crime?  First, no respectable bank or credit union contacts their customers by email.  So when you receive a message like this all sorts of bells and whistles should go off in your head.  Look at the message carefully.  Many times you will see words that aren't spelled correctly, or sentences where singular/plural words or phrases are not used correctly.  Warn others about the existence of these types of messages and show them how to prevent being a victim of identity theft.  Report identify theft attempts to the FBI and local law enforcement authorities.  And lastly, never provide anyone or any business that you can't trust with any of your personal information like bank account numbers, logon IDs, passwords, Social Security numbers, etc.
 
Charlie

 
From: NCUA [mailto:aw-confirm@ncua.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 10:46 AM
Subject: Official information for all Federal Credit Union.
 

Dear Client ,

NCUA is constantly working to ensure security by regularly screening the accounts in our system. We recently reviewed your account, and we need more information to help us provide you with secure service. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited. We would like to restore your access as soon as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience.


- Why is my account access limited?

- Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s):


- * May 12, 2006: We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party. Because protecting the security of your account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive Washington Mutual account features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection.

(Your case ID for this reason is THEFT-3150019066.)


How can I restore my account access?


This limitation cannot be appealed.

- We encourage you to restore full access as soon as possible.


http://www.ncua.gov/update.php  (Link has been removed) It would have actually gone to
http://www.anarchy.co.kr/



Once you complete all of the checklist items, your case will be reviewed by one of our Account Specialists. We will send you an email with the outcome of the review.
Thanks for your patience as we work together to protect your account

Best regards,
- National Credit Union Administration Team.