Fraudulent Attempts to Access Bank Accounts Have Increased

If you have been one of the millions of people who have received an email from your bank asking you to update your information, then it is quite likely that you have been targeted in one of the many bank phishing scams that have been plaguing the Internet and banks. Con artists who try to scam people into revealing their personal banking information has increased about 180% in 2008 over the same numbers for 2007.

In fact banks report that there were 21,000 cases reported between January and June of this year and that is only the numbers that were reported to them. Many people do recognize such email messages as spam and do not bother to open the messages before they delete them. It is suspected that the numbers are far higher.

Since more and more people are now aware that these messages from their banks are phishing scams, the losses are likely to be less than they were in the past, according to the banking body – Apacs. In these scams, you would receive an email that seemingly comes from your bank. When you open the message, everything seems as if it actually came from the bank asking you to update your personal information.

Unless you are wise to the process, the information that you have to enter will include your PIN number. If you do not know the difference and enter this information, you give the phishing experts (the originators of the message) access to your bank account. The next time you want to withdraw money, you may be surprised to find that there is none there.

These phishing scams are not limited to banks. Customers have also received emails impersonating the HM Revenue and Customs. You may get emails from banks with whom you do not have any dealings and you try to answer the questions in an attempt to find out why this particular bank is contacting you. Even though you may not have a PIN or password associated with an account, you may just reveal enough information to provide the phishers with everything they need to steal your identity or to obtain a loan in your name at that bank.

Even though the numbers of people affected by phishing scams rose from 14,000 in 2006 to 26,000 in 2007 and to 47,000 in the first half of 2008, the losses have been less because more and more people are aware of the scams.

According to Sandra Quinn of Apacs, “In the future we expect more and more people to use online banking to make payments rather than just checking balances, particularly in light of the recent introduction of the new faster payments service.”

She also adds that bank customers should be increasingly wary so that they do not pay attention to any unsolicited emails they receive from their bank.

Banks are making new systems available to their customers so that they can make their payments online and to ensure that such systems are secure. The customer has to create a unique password and enter this password into the system every time they access their account online.

Tags: Sandra Quinn, phishing, June, security, fraud, internet, Cybercrime, bank accounts