Here is another good example of a phishing email that is presently being circulated. It was sent to me by a Scamicide reader who received it. It makes for compelling reading, but it is a scam. Phishing emails, by which scammers and identity thieves attempt to lure you into either clicking on links contained within the email which will download malware or providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft, are nothing new. They are a staple of identity thieves and scammers and with good reason because they work. As always, they lure you by making it appear that there is an emergency that requires your immediate attention or else dire consequences will occur. Copied below is a new phishing email presently being sent to unsuspecting people that appears to come from Schwab. This particular one came with a Schwab logo. A telltale sign that this is a phishing email is that the email address of the sender was one that has nothing to do with Scwab and was most likely part of a botnet of computers infected by scammers and then used to send out the phishing email in a way that is not readily traceable back to the scammer.
Here is the email. Please note that I have scrambled the links which the phishing email attempted to lure you into clicking on. I also have scrambled the telephone number it provided.
| Schwab Delivery Alert | ||||
| For your security, Your Online Banking has been locked because the number of attempts to sign in exceeded the number allowed. To regain access,To unblock your account, log on to this link http://www.xxxx.com You will use your same User ID and Password to login and verify your account information.
Please don’t reply directly to this automatically-generated e-mail message. Thank you for the opportunity to serve you. |
| UNSUBSCRIBE | PRIVACY | MESSAGES |  LOG IN |
| If you have any questions or concerns, please do not reply to this email. Please contact the Schwab Alliance team at 800-xxx-xxxxx.
For your protection, we are unable to accept instructions to change your email address sent in reply to this message. To update your address using a secure channel, please log in to your account. For your security, Charles Schwab will never request personal information through email. Learn more about Schwab security practices, including the Schwab Security Guarantee. NOTICE: All email sent to or from the Charles Schwab corporate email system is subject to archival, monitoring, and/or review by Schwab personnel. |
TIPS
Legitimate emails from your bank or stock broker would include the last four digits of your account and include your name. This email had neither. Often such phishing emails originate in countries where English is not the primary language and the spelling and grammar are poor. However this one appears grammatically correct. Obviously, if you are not a Schwab customer, you will recognize immediately that this is a scam. As with most phishing emails, they lure you into clicking on a link by attempting to trick you into believing there is an emergency. However, if you hover on the sign in link contained in the actual phishing email, you will find it does not go to Schwab.
As with all phishing emails, two things can happen if you click on the links provided. Either you will be sent to a legitimate looking, but phony webpage where you will be prompted to input personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft or, even worse, merely by clicking on the link, you will download malware such as keystroke logging malware that will steal all of your personal information from your computer and use it to make you a victim of identity theft. If you receive an email like this and think it may possibly be legitimate, merely call your bank or other institution from which the email purports to originate at a telephone number that you know is accurate and you will be able to confirm that it is a scam.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.”
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is to go to the bottom of the initial page of http://www.scamicide.com and click on the tab that states “Sign up for this blog.”