Citibank warns customers of e-mail scam
The banking giant cautions customers not to fall for an e-mail scam that threatens to shut down their checking accounts if they fail to provide their Social Security numbers.
Citibank, a division of Citigroup, said "numerous" people received the e-mail, which purported to advise them of conditions affecting their accounts.
It said the e-mail linked to a Web site that looks like Citibank's, and asked customers 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 e-mail 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 e-mail," a company representative said.
The bank urged recipients to delete the e-mail and call the customer service number on their automatic teller machine cards. It said that the company is working with law enforcement and that its systems have not been compromised.
The e-mail is an example of "phishing"--the use of spam, or unwanted junk e-mail, to lure computer users to Web sites 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 e-mail.
Citibank is the No. 3 U.S. commercial bank by assets and the No. 2 retail bank in the New York City area. Citigroup's retail banking operations had average customer deposits of $197.2 billion in the quarter ended June 30.
Several people at Reuters--some of whom do not have Citibank accounts--received the e-mail, which carried varied addresses at juno.com, mail.com and yahoo.com.
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 Web site, with text in Mandarin, for Nanhua Futures Trading Co., a brokerage in Zhejiang, China.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has warned about phishing. It encourages consumers to visit its Web sites for identity theft and spam to learn how to minimize 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.
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