Joe Hepperle Letter To The Bank Regarding Phishing

Joe Hepperle Letter To The Bank (Re: Phishing)

I am not a customer of yours, but I received a phishing email attempting to get my account number and other information. I am including a copy of that email in a zip file so your banking-fraud people can 'follow the money' to find these people and have them arrested.

I am a bit concerned that your website does not deal with this more proactively. Although you have a warning on your web site about this phishing campaign, it doesn't have the flavor of genuine concern.

For example, you have an extremely generic and non-urgent sentence "Beware of fraudulent emails...".

That's like being at the beach by the ocean when a shark is spotted in the water, very near to shore. Your kids, who did not hear that a shark is (RIGHT NOW) swimming just a few yards off shore, tell you that they are going swimming in the water.

And you, rather than respond back with the expected reply of "Don't go in the water! There is a shark swimming only a few yards off shore RIGHT NOW!", you instead just yell over to them, "Okay... watch out for sharks."

It would seem that a more proactive and urgent warning should be given.

Also, since phishing scams are all too frequent now, it would seem prudent that the banking industry would have a banking version of WalMart's Adam Alert -- where you go into semi-lockdown with your depositors' money, only releasing sums after a secondary verification of the withdrawal request when a current phishing scam is brought to your attention.

Joe Hepperle