Reader Mark H. shares the following information about a phishing scam he received:
Below you’ll find an email that was mailed to me that appears to be a con. I don’t have anything, not that I know of anyway, with Associated Card Online. Since I don’t recognize this service as being one of mine, I didn’t access the url that they provided. Could you check this out and let your readers know if this is indeed a con job. Thanks for your help.
Mark
—– Original Message —–
From: Associated Card Online Customer Service
To: [Mark’s email address]
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:26 PM
Subject: Customer Alerting Service: limited
Valued Customer,
The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.
CashApp us
Venmo us
Paypal us
Banking Service are remind you that on April 26, 2005 our Online Review Team identified some unusual activity in your online account In accordance with Associated Bank’s Agreement and to guarantee that your online account hasn’t been compromised, access to your savings account was limited. Your online access will remain blocked until this question has been resolved. Online Support recommend you to log in and perform the steps necessary to give back your account access immediatelly. If your account access to stay blocked for a long period of time may effect in further limitations on the use of your account and possible account closure.
Sign on to Online Account
To protect the confidence of your online access, employs some of the most advanced online safety systems in the world and our anti-fraud groups hourly screen the Online Bank system for fraud activity.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this question. Customer Support apologize for any inconvenience.Please understand that this is a safety procedure meant to help protect you and your bank account.
Yours,
Associated Banc Corp, NA, Online Account Customer Service
The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.
CashApp us
Venmo us
Paypal us
also hate assoc bank, their fees, and their poor customer service. in process of switching all five of our accounts away from ass. bank
I hate associated bank. They have the worst customer service and are money hungry. Every customer service rep has a additude like they run the show. I hate them!!!
Dear Customer,
Customer Service remind you that on 03, May 2005 our Online Review Team identified some uncommon activity in your account. In accordance with Associated Bank, NA’s Agreement and to guarantee that your account hasn’t been compromised, internet access to your account was limited. Your online access will remain limited until this question has been resolved. We advise you to sign on and perform the steps requisite to give back your account access as soon as possible. Allowing your online access to stay blocked for a long period of time may effect in further restrictions on the use of your Debit Card account and possible account closure.Login to Online Account
To protect the safety of your account access, employs some of the most leading safety systems in the world and our anti-fraud teams regularly screen the Online Bank system for fraud activity.
Please understand that this is a security measure meant to help protect you and your account. Thank you for your prompt attention to this problem. Customer Support apologize for any inconvenience.
Yours,
Associated Bank, Banking Service
This stands out like a sore thumb as an extremely poor phishing attempt. Gramatically it’s all over the place, and even if you were to scan rather than carefully read the email the poor grammar should still stand out. To my mind, even the subject line is poorly constructed.
If you received this and believed it might be genuine then one would have to question the quality of the banking institution you have your accounts with.
Seems to me like this is the newest tactic in phishing. I just got a similar e-mail from eBay, in which some of the links actually do take you to the correct eBay site. All but the one they want you to click that is. I posted it here, in case you want to alert your readers to this phishing sham: