Halifax phishing email - two days after getting new card

Chlorine7

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post so apologies if I’m posting in the wrong place etc. This kind of a warning and vent. I’ve just received an email from “support@halifax” with “Mis-match of Access Code” as the subject.

It basically states my online services have been suspended due to mis-match of access code between security details and I have two days for instant activation with a https link to a site. I Googled the first lines of the email and found out it definitely was a phishing email.

What is bothering me is how these people might have got my email address so quickly after I applied for a Halifax card. I have received a genuine email from Halifax relating to my application and phoned them to confirm the email. I received the credit card (the travel one as on the MSE website) on Friday and Monday I had three of the phishing emails one after another.

Have Halifax had a security leak of some kind or is it someone working there selling email addresses? I am usually very dubious about emails I receive from my banks but I wasn’t 100% certain that this was a scam or genuine.

I never click banking links but it does look like a genuine email and I am going to phone them during lunch to confirm my account is ok. I haven’t actually tried to get online or use the credit card yet but I just want to make no-one else has.

I hope this stops anyone else from being possibly scammed.

System

It's got nothing to do with you just getting a card.

I regularly get them for Nationwide, Halifax, Barclay etc. I have tried to do as they ask but as I have never had accounts with these banks I fall at the first hurdle. As much as I would like to help these people get their records sorted I can't. I hope they will forgive me.

Take_it_like_a_man,_sonny

I doubt it came from the bank and is a typical nonesensical phising email. Treat with the care you would give your Mother in Law. Respect and in the bin.

Apologies to MiLs elsewhere.

ashleypride

Chlorine7 wrote: »

What is bothering me is how these people got my email address so quickly after I applied for a Halifax card. I have received a genuine email from Halifax relating to my application and phoned them to confirm the email.

They haven't got your email address from Halifax its coincidence. Its just spam ignore it.

kermitfrog

ashleypride wrote: »

They haven't got your email address from Halifax its coincidence. Its just spam ignore it.

Aw, why did you have to spoil a burgeoning conspiracy theory?

Chlorine7

I don't think the actual email came from the bank. I'm just suspicious as to the timescales of them getting my email details and me getting a phishing email.

I have got them from Barclays and HSBC in the past (only one of whom actually has my email). It is the first time I have received one from Halifax and coincidentally right after I sign up.

I'm going to carry on as if it is a coincidence but I think it's slightly odd that now I am a customer I get the email but before nothing.

browneyedbazzi

I think it's likely to be coincidence that the emails arrived just after you got a card from Halifax.

Is it possible that previous Halifax emails went to your junk mail box but since you've actually had legit correspondence from Halifax recently your email account didn't screen out these emails?

I've had all sorts of phishing emails purporting to be from most of the big banks...many of which I've never held an account with or given my email address to. They're sent out quite randomly to loads of people knowing that most people will just click delete but hoping that they'll catch someone (like you) at a coincidental time and that you'll fall for the scam.

raven83

OP, I get this all the time, whatever you do do not click on the link. I got a new card from them too not long ago and surprise surprise I got an email coincidentely a day later, it is all a scam. Banks would never contact you that way anyway. Also the fact they don't even address you by your full name is another big giveaway it is not genuine.

Hmm71

I've lost count of the number of phishing e-mails I get. I've only got one bank account but apparently I'm a Respected and Valued Customer of Nationwide, Halifax, Lloyds TSB, Barclays and Santander. They all get deleted without being looked at.

Chlorine7

I do delete all banking emails. And I never click links in any email I suspect is suspicious. I am also aware of those not using my full name.

The timing of this one (it was actually three in row) simply made me suspicious of Halifax when I have never recieved phishing ones from "them" before. Not even in my spam folder.

It also made me think that lots of other people could have easily clicked the link and let it take them to wherever it goes.

Nilrem

!!!!!! wrote: »

It's got nothing to do with you just getting a card.

I regularly get them for Nationwide, Halifax, Barclay etc. I have tried to do as they ask but as I have never had accounts with these banks I fall at the first hurdle. As much as I would like to help these people get their records sorted I can't. I hope they will forgive me.

Aye, I get them from memory from.
Barclays, Lloyds (or used to), Halifax, Natwest, Citibank, and about a dozen other banks, many of which I've only heard of from watching Films or American TV.
Not to mention the ones from the HMRC and the IRS.

The amusing thing is, that most of the emails I get from the "banks" are to addresses I never use for anything important.
I have a number of email address, of which some are used on forums, and others for different types of store , or competitions.

It's probably just co-incidence that the op got one shortly after getting a new card (I get about one every couple of days).