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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM FIRST STATE BANK First State Bank makes every effort to protect our customers from being defrauded by scam artists. One way is to educate our customers of one of the most popular and recurring scams taking place today which is phishing. The term phishing can best be described as follows: Phishing (fish´ing) (n.) The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate organization in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for fraudulent purposes. The e-mail directs the user to click on a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit/debit card, social security, and bank account numbers that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information. For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link and updated the credit card or debit card information that the genuine eBay already had. Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a legitimate organizations site by mimicking the HTML code and company logos, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by eBay and subsequently giving out their personal account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail reaching people who actually had an account with eBay. Other legitimate business names that have been used in phishing are PayPal, Amazon.com, Fifth Third Bank, Wachovia Bank, the FDIC and more. Remember, legitimate organizations do not communicate with customers asking them to update personal information on their accounts via the email. Emails intended for fraudulent purposes will:
Bogus websites are set-up to appear very much like the legitimate organizations website, such as secure.fsbanks.com. (First State’s only web address is simply www.fsbanks.com). To educate yourself more on identity theft and phishing scams visit this FDIC website at http://anon.vodium.com.edgesuite.net/anon.vodium/fdic/identitytheft/index.html. Or, to avoid typing the above address, go to www.fdic.gov, and then click on “Consumers” from the list on the right-hand part of the page. Then, click on “Don’t Be an On-line Victim: How to Guard Against Internet Thieves and Electronic Scams”. (While you are in the “Consumers” section, look at the many other resources - we at First State Bank think you will like them!) |
