Halifax spoof emails

MoneySavingUser

Getting a LOT of these lately:

Dear Customer,

Please note that starting from September 04, 2011 we will be introducing new online banking
authentication procedures in order to protect the private information of all online banking users.

You are required to confirm your online banking details with us as you will not be able to
have access to your accounts until this has been done.

As you're already registered for online banking all you need to do is to confirm
your online banking details.

Confirm your Details (was a link)
Once you've completed this you'll be able to manage your money whenever you want,
giving you more control of your finances.

Best wishes,

Security Team
Halifax Online Service

but when you mouse over the confirm link it leads to a non-halifax scam site (I haven't clicked through)

Please be careful if you receive a similar email

You can forward it to Halifax: http://www.halifax.co.uk/securityandprivacy/security-centre-home/common-threats/phishing/

Report it

If you receive an email or text message that asks for your personal information, do not click on any link or provide any Internet Banking or telephone banking security details. Please forward suspicious emails or details of text messages that ask for your personal information to [EMAIL="security@halifax.co.uk"]security@halifax.co.uk[/EMAIL] and then delete it from your inbox without responding. This information will be used to help reduce fraud online.
If you have been presented with a pop-up screen asking you to enter your security details, do not enter any details and call 08456 02 00 00.
Protect yourself and your computer by having up-to-date anti-virus software, operating systems and firewalls.

GetRealBabe

Hi

I got the same email. Dear Customer usually means it's fraudulent as Halifax know your name.I always log in via http://www.halifax.co.uk/home/home.asp

pineapple

I don't think one should ever even open suspect mails. If there is any doubt, you can always get in touch with the bank and ask if they sent anything. Halifax seems to be one of the commoner scams - though I also get ones purporting to be from PayPal and Lindedln. I know they are fake as I am not in either!

MoneySaverLog

Even if they have your name, don't trust any emails that say they originate from a bank. Banks would not contact you in this way to update security details, ever.

The big clue is when you hover the mouse over the link it shows up the hackers site.

stclair

This is a good website for bank scams and how to spot them etc:

http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/spotting_scams.html

pinkdalek

Usually you can spot them via the grammar, in this one notice the capital D after Confirm your Details.

Also the date format is American style, a British bank would state 4th September 2011 (04/09/11).

Best advice is to delete them, the scammers do not know who you bank with they send them to the e-mail address, and bearing in mind there are about 30 million Halifax accounts out there it tells you why Halifax customers seem to be targeted more, on average 1 in 3 people in UK have some form of relationship with Halifax.

dunstonh

Quite a few easy identifiers to it being spam (beyond the obvious they they wouldnt ask that info)

1 - dear customer - a bank wouldnt use that.
2 - September 4th 2011 is American dating. Not British.
3 - sign off is best wishes - again, not something a bank would use
4 - sign off name is not given.

Milan82

I dont know if this is a scam as well, but i had one from halifax saying they can personalise my cards with pictures i had taken. All i had to do was upload them and a new card would be sent within a feww weeks !! Needless to say I didnt take up their offer .

jamesd

Another way to spot these is to give banks different email addresses, or give all places their own unique email address. Then the email address that it's sent to will make it obvious that the typical scams haven't come from your bank. I use spamgourmet.com for mine. Add your legitimate senders to the trusted sender list to get rid of the 20 emails per address limit.

If you want a fairly simple and moderately safe scheme, use three different gmail accounts instead:

1. Financial - banks, building societies and well known investment and pension places.
2. Shopping - merchants. Legitimate merchants don't tend to sell your details, I'd know it they did and it's rare. Pharmacy sites are a big exception, those can have very poor practices.
3. Posting on sites including this one. Much more frequently compromised and spammed. Best to use this one for pharmacies.

Change number 3 whenever the level of spam going to it becomes excessive. 1 and 2 won't end up getting much spam and the places will normally respect opt out requests.

After some ten years, here are my approximate statistics with spam gourmet: 8,000 forwarded (the legitimate ones mostly), 185,000 eaten (the spam, addresses I mostly just turn off). 470 different email addresses. The worst single spam source is an online pharmacy site that sold my email address, leading to 112,000 spam emails. Almost none of which have ever even reached my mailbox. Blogs have been another leading source of spam.

When you get a letter from your bank that's to an address that you used on a bulletin board and not to the one you gave them it's really obvious what is happening.

opinions4u

Milan82 wrote: »

I dont know if this is a scam as well, but i had one from halifax saying they can personalise my cards with pictures i had taken. All i had to do was upload them and a new card would be sent within a feww weeks !! Needless to say I didnt take up their offer .

This is available for free on the Ultimate Reward Current Account.

http://www.halifaxmycard.co.uk/

Antimony

pinkdalek wrote: »

Best advice is to delete them

I always deleted these emails, but in the past week or so I've been forwarding them to the bank's phishing/security email address - I'm thinking that if we all do that, it may make it more difficult for the scammers..?