Recognizing email fraud is not always easy. The criminals who use email and online fraud to try and get their potential victims' personal, financial or account information are adopting increasingly sophisticated techniques. Below is a sample of a new type of phishing email message that uses a fake Customer Identification Program (CIP) Bank of America email message threatening account closure, to trick BoA customers into visiting phishing websites that steal personal and financial information.
A Sample of the Customer Identification Program BoA Email
Section 326 of the USA PATRIOT Act requires all finanacial institutions to maintain a Customer Identification Program (CIP) to verify the identity of each customer/member wishing to conduct financial transactions.
The CIP is intended to enable the bank to form a reasonable belief that it knows the true identity of each customer. To meet this requirement, Bank Of America needs additional information from you before you can continue using your account.
Please click "Message Received" below now so we may gather with you additional verification needed.
Until we are able to satisfy the requirements of the CIP, your account will remain in an inactive status and no transactions will be permitted on the account. Bank Of America will close the account after 2 days of receiving this message if the CIP requirements are not satisfied.
Thank you for being a Bank Of America Customer and we look forward to serving all of your financial needs.
Bank of America customers should approach unsolicited email containing urgent appeals for security or personal information with great caution. They should always confirm the validity of email messages that appear to come from trusted sources. Bank of America will never ask their customers to provide their Social Security number, ATM or debit card PIN or any other sensitive information in response to an email. Bank of America customers who receive emails appearing to come from Bank of America and are not sure if they real, should not click on any links in the emails. They should instead, contact Bank of America and have them verify if the emails are real or not.
BoA customers who have been tricked by the fraudulent Customer Identification Program(CIP) emails are asked change their BoA passwords and contact Bank of America immediately.