I jes' received the followin' email:
Dear valued Citibank member,I was not really alarmed by this email as I knew it was a scam. Check out the popup screen capture and see that this is jes' an attempt for someone to harvest your account information so that they can rip you off. Who are they? Well, usin' the new toy, such URL given to me by recent commenter, sleepygrumpydoc, I went to http://www.dnsstuff.com/ and found that the website is hosted in China. Now don't tell me that this is only a sign that CitiBank has begun to outsource their money-makin' email scams? Ain't we got enough crooks in the good ol' US of A to pull of somethin' like this? -- oh, wait -- they likey prosecute this sort of stuff under some Federal Wire Fraud statute here. I wonder what the Chinese Government does upon discovery that some of their more unscrupulous denizens are usin' internet technology in order to fleece unsuspectin' Americans. Anyone wanna hazard a guess on this one?[*]Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the online banking community we have issued the following warning message.
It has come to our attention that your account information needs to be confirmed due to inactive customers, fraud and spoof reports. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the online service. However, failure to confirm your records may result in your account suspension.
Once you have confirmed your account records your Internet banking service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.
Please click here to confirm your bank account records. [note: link opens popup screen capture of actual site, and does not go to site itself.]
Thank you for your time,
Citibank Billing Department
By the way, don't find yourself among those unsuspectin' Americans who find themselves fleeced in this operation.
*[Addendum footnote]Upon some further reflection, I figgered it really would make very little difference if they shot 'em in the head for doin' so. You likely ain't gonna get your money back, not from them or the Chinese government. I also understand that, in China, it is not all that hard to find some way to get yourself shot in the head, as that seems to be considered fairly just punishment for nearly every transgression, so, over there, what you do really makes very little difference. How long you can do it before you get caught and are shot in the head for doing it seems to be the real essense of the game.
Posted by Tiger at November 1, 2004 10:42 AM