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E-mail scam deceives local bank's clients
University senior Kate Sullivan had more than $1,000 stolen from her account last week
by Eric Florip | News Editor
One week ago, University senior Kate Sullivan received an unusual e-mail from her bank, Oregon Community Credit Union. The e-mail said there had been multiple attempts to log into her account from a foreign IP address, and said she should log on herself to check for any irregular transactions.
Sullivan checked it out. She thought it was probably nothing.
"I didn't really think anything much of the e-mail when I responded to it," she said.
Not until three days later did Sullivan realize the error of her ways. She logged on again Thursday, only to find that several large transactions in California (where she hadn't been) had drained more than $1,000 from her account.
Sullivan was a victim of identity theft.
"I was definitely freaking out. I didn't know what had happened," she said. "I also didn't know what was going to happen with the money that was lost. That was scary."
Sullivan was one of at least eight Oregon Community Credit Union customers victimized last week by the fraudulent e-mail, a "phishing" scam designed to prompt people to unknowingly give their personal account information to the wrong source, said OCCU Director of Marketing Laura Illig.
"They're basically fishing for your information," Illig said, who added that even a small credit union like OCCU can get as many as four such scams per year.
Andre Chinn, coordinator of instructional technology in the University's journalism school, who received the initial message, traced the e-mail to a server in Mexico after copying the link into a separate window. The link's Web address ended in ".mx" instead of ".com" or ".org," which tipped him off to the location, Chinn said.
Chinn responded Monday by sending out a warning e-mail to University faculty and students in the University's School of Journalism and Communication.
"I was actually already a bit sensitive to the issue, because a member of our faculty had already received a similar phishing e-mail from Amazon.com," he said.
Sullivan checked it out. She thought it was probably nothing.
"I didn't really think anything much of the e-mail when I responded to it," she said.
Not until three days later did Sullivan realize the error of her ways. She logged on again Thursday, only to find that several large transactions in California (where she hadn't been) had drained more than $1,000 from her account.
Sullivan was a victim of identity theft.
"I was definitely freaking out. I didn't know what had happened," she said. "I also didn't know what was going to happen with the money that was lost. That was scary."
Sullivan was one of at least eight Oregon Community Credit Union customers victimized last week by the fraudulent e-mail, a "phishing" scam designed to prompt people to unknowingly give their personal account information to the wrong source, said OCCU Director of Marketing Laura Illig.
"They're basically fishing for your information," Illig said, who added that even a small credit union like OCCU can get as many as four such scams per year.
Andre Chinn, coordinator of instructional technology in the University's journalism school, who received the initial message, traced the e-mail to a server in Mexico after copying the link into a separate window. The link's Web address ended in ".mx" instead of ".com" or ".org," which tipped him off to the location, Chinn said.
Chinn responded Monday by sending out a warning e-mail to University faculty and students in the University's School of Journalism and Communication.
"I was actually already a bit sensitive to the issue, because a member of our faculty had already received a similar phishing e-mail from Amazon.com," he said.
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