The email message below, which appears as a Bank of America (BOA) alert, claiming there were several failed login attempts on the recipients’ online banking accounts, is a phishing scam. The fake email message was not sent by Bank of America, so recipients of the same email message should delete it and should never follow the instructions in it. Bank of America customers should never click on a link in an email message to sign into their online accounts, they should instead, go directly to Bank of America ’s website and sign into their accounts from there. This way, they will never need to worry about phishing scams.
The Bank of America (BOA) Phishing Scam
From: Bank Of America alerts@member-services.com
Sent: Monday, August 1, 2016 5:38 AM
Subject: Important Account Alert: You Have A New Secure Message
Dear BOA Member,
We identified several failed login attempts on the online access of your BOA account with us.
For this reason and to further protect your identity, we immediately require that you reconfirm your details hereunder
Please click here to the verify your identity
Please view message in HTML.
For your protection, transactions on your account may be limited until you are able to confirm your identity.
Please Do Not Reply to this Email. This is an urgent notification email that cannot accept incoming replies.
The links in the fake email message go to a fake or phishing Bank of America website. Now, any attempts to sign into the fake website will send the potential victims’ Bank of America (BOA) online account credentials to the thieves who created the scam. Once the thieves are in possession of their potentials victims’ credentials, they will hijack their accounts and use the accounts fraudulently.
Bank of America customers who have already attempted to sign into the phishing website, should change their passwords and contact Bank of America immediately.