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Citibank warns customers of email scam
Poor grammar just one giveaway...

By Reuters Reuters

Published: Tuesday 19 August 2003

Citibank on Monday warned customers not to fall for an email scam that threatened to shut down their checking accounts if they failed to provide their Social Security numbers.

Citibank, a division of Citigroup, said "numerous" people received the email, which purported to advise them of conditions affecting their accounts.

It said the email linked to a website that looks like Citibank's and asked users for their Social Security numbers, a form of identification. Scammers can use such data to obtain credit cards or access to bank and other accounts.

"Although the email appears to come from Citibank regarding 'Your Checking Account at Citibank', it does not, and Citibank is in no way involved in the distribution of this email," a spokesman said.

The bank urged recipients to delete the email and call the customer service number on their automatic teller machine cards. It said it is working with law enforcement and said its systems have not been compromised.

The email is an example of 'phishing' - the use of spam, or unwanted junk email, to lure computer users to websites that look like those of reputable companies, and to deceive them into divulging personal financial data.

It was not immediately clear how many customers had received or acted upon the email.

Citibank is the number three US commercial bank by assets and the number two retail bank in the New York City area. Citigroup's retail banking operations had average customer deposits of $197.2bn in the quarter ended 30 June.

The e-mail, which contains grammatical and spelling errors, said in part: "Dear Citibank customer, We are letting you know, that you, as a Citibank checking account holder, must become acquainted with our new Terms & Conditions and agree to it. Please, carefully read all the parts of our new Terms & Conditions and post your consent. Otherwise, we will have to suspend your Citibank checking account."

As of Monday afternoon, the linked page carried an error message. A link on that page connected to a website, with text in Mandarin, for Nanhua Futures Trading Co., a brokerage in Zhejiang, China.

The US Federal Trade Commission has warned about phishing. It encourages consumers to visit its websites for identity theft and spam to learn how to minimise the risk of loss.

Last month, in its first internet phishing enforcement action, the FTC recovered $3,500 from a 17-year-old boy it charged with creating a fake America Online web page to obtain customers' credit card information.