Halifax Phishing email

trisha

I received a phishing email last night about my account being suspended addressed to 'Dear Adeshina Waidi Akerele' I forwarded to security at Halifax after speaking on the phone about it.

My concern is we are new customers and I am not happy about this, yesterday morning I tried to make a payment from the account to an account at another bank, my account was suspended for security checks saying they would telephone me to check details, how would I know if the phone was genuine if I answered it ? fortunately I contacted them first and did the security check with them and was then able to make the payment. I got two genuine emails verifying the payment.

How did they get my email address and know the account had been suspended ? there is no way I will do any more online transactions with HBOS now.

Has anyone else experienced this ?

I am very keen on internet safety, I have just done a scan with spybot and I am clear

rb10

It is nothing to do with Halifax ... you see these sorts of emails all the time, for all the big banks. The people sending the emails are just trying to get you to enter your online banking details on their website, so that they can access your account.

They just guess email addresses - it's free to send an email, so they can send thousands at a time at no cost.

It's just a coincidence that you happened to get an email at the same time as your account had been suspended.

trisha

Whoever sent it knew that my account was suspended as that was what the email was about explaining about the security for doing so, they couldn't have guessed that, they would need inside information surely, they didn't ask any details about the account.

It's weird !

Svenena

Almost all phishing emails claim your account has been suspended - it's the standard format, and just a coincidence that yours actually had been.

GetRealBabe

Hi Trish

I get phishing emails all the time mostly for bank accounts I don't have. They all go in the junk folder and I delete them.

Don't worry about it. As a previous posters mentioned it's just a coincidence that your account had been suspended.

scottishblondie

Totally agree with Svenena - I've had phising emails from all the big banks, and all of them have referred to my account being suspended.

Funkyfreddy

trisha wrote: »

I received a phishing email last night about my account being suspended addressed to 'Dear Adeshina Waidi Akerele' I forwarded to security at Halifax after speaking on the phone about it.

There is litle point speaking to the Halifax/HSBC about it or forwarding it to them. Its just one of thousands sent out.

Best pan is just hit Delete and forget about it.

Like many (most) on here I receive "oodles" of them each day from numerous financial insitutions some associated with this country and others not - some of whome I actually have an account with but most not.

Your Bank will never send you any communication such as this so just bin them.

trisha wrote: »

My concern is we are new customers and I am not happy about this,....

It has nothing to do with the Halifax - don't assume or beleive it has. If this is the first you have received then you can probably expect to receive more in the future.

trisha wrote: »

How did they get my email address and know the account had been suspended ? there is no way I will do any more online transactions with HBOS now.

As above - has nothing to do with HBOS it is because your e-mail address has been aquired by the people sending them out. This can have happened as a result of:

• Your own PC being compromised by some spyware/worm
• Somebody you have communicated with that has your e-mail address having their PC compromised.
• Some company you have had dealings with passing on your details via an mailing list.
• Posting your e-mail address on a public forum that has then been harvested.
• Numerous other ways

trisha wrote: »

Has anyone else experienced this ?

Yep, every day. Most all go to the "public" e-mail address I make use - the e-mail addresses(s) I make use of for anything such as banking are unique and never given out to anybody else so I if I receive any marketing or junk into those I know who is at fault for distributing it.

Depending on your ISP you may be able to create an additonal e-mail address or just create one with the likes of Hotmail and keep that fopr use with your Bank - gives you a better chance of understanding what is real and what isn't.

FF

KingElvis

had a Halifax spam to my Hotmail address this morning...obvious shizzle if you look at it and the fact that I've never been near them for anything helps.

rb10

Funkyfreddy wrote: »

Depending on your ISP you may be able to create an additonal e-mail address or just create one with the likes of Hotmail and keep that fopr use with your Bank - gives you a better chance of understanding what is real and what isn't.

With Gmail you can easily make lots of different addresses, since if you send an email to xyz+abc@gmail.com, then Gmail will ignore everything between the + and the @. That message will be delivered to xyz@gmail.com. But when you receive it, you'll see that it was sent to xyz+abc.

So if your email address is trisha@gmail.com, then give Halifax the address trisha+halifax@gmail.com. That way, you know that any emails claiming to be from Halifax but sent to trisha@gmail.com are phishing scams.

hcb42

I get several every day, for banks i have never even stepped inside too.

but of course it is not just banks, there are lots of other emails from other organisations - ebay/facebook etc - make it an absolute rule never to click a link in an email message, but instead visit the site by typing in its address and log on normally if not sure.

trisha

Thank you all for your advice, I have stopped worrying about it now and I have changed my email address to a new one just for banking :-)
I had used the other one on comparison web sites which was probably not a good idea to use it for banking as well.

Trisha