Fraudulent Emails Appearing to Come from NACHA

Posted 11/23/2011

Fraud and Phishing Resources

NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association provides these resources to educate consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and other parties about ways that they can protect themselves from the sustained and evolving phishing attacks in which individuals and organizations in the U.S. and other nations are receiving emails that fraudulently claim to come from NACHA regarding ACH payment transactions.

Be Aware That:

• NACHA does not process nor otherwise touch the ACH transactions that flow via the ACH Network nor between financial institutions and their customers.
• NACHA does not send communications of any type to persons or organizations about individual ACH transactions that they originate and receive. If you or your customer has received a communication of this nature that purports to come from NACHA, it is fraudulent.
• NACHA is the industry trade association that manages the development, administration, and governance of the ACH Network, the backbone for the electronic movement of money and data.
• The ACH Network serves as a safe, secure, reliable network for direct consumer, business, and government payments, and annually facilitates billions of payments such as Direct Deposit and Direct Payment.
• These incidents are occurring with greater frequency and increased sophistication. Perpetrators are conducting similar phishing attacks in which they are sending fraudulent emails that claim to be from the Federal Reserve Bank, IRS, or other federal agencies, as well as commercial financial institutions, other payment organizations, technology companies, and businesses.   
   

Email Claiming to Be From the FDIC

Posted 1/10/2011

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has received numerous reports of a fraudulent email that has the appearance of being sent from the FDIC.

The subject line of the emails state: "Account Insurance from FDIC" or "FDIC Insurance." The email tells recipients that their "account has been denied insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation due to suspected violations of the Patriot Act." The email goes on to ask recipients to "verify through our IDVerify below," stating that "information will be checked against a federal government database for identity verification." The email says that it is from "Donald E. Powell, Chairman Emeritus FDIC; John D. Hawke, Jr., Comptroller of the Currency; and Michael E. Bartell, Chief Information Officer."

This email and associated Web site are fraudulent. Recipients should consider the intent of this email as an attempt to collect personal or confidential information, or to load malicious software onto end users' computers and should not click on the link provided.

The FDIC does not issue unsolicited emails to consumers. Financial institutions and consumers should NOT follow the link in the fraudulent email. 

Important Phishing Alert

Posted 7/23/2010

We are getting reports that ViewPoint Bank customers—and non-customers—have been receiving automated calls that their check cards have been blocked and that they need to call a number to provide their card information.

DO NOT call the number they provide. This is a phishing scam. ViewPoint Bank will never call you to ask for your account number.

If you did call the number and provided your card details, we recommend that you call ViewPoint Bank customer service at 972-578-5000 to block your card and order a new card number.

Phishers commonly target customers of banks and online payment services.  They send messages indiscriminately in the form of e-mails, phone calls or texts, expecting that some of the messages will be received by customers of a given bank or service who will then divulge their confidential financial information.

Please note that there are no compromises of ViewPoint Bank’s customer information. 

Important online security alert: Visa phishing scam

Posted 7/21/2010

Please be aware that cybercriminals are trying to obtain personal financial  information from online banking users by using fake online enrollment pages for Verified by Visa and MasterCard Secure. They are claiming that FDIC rules require consumers to enroll in one of these programs.

Please note there are NO requirements to sign up for these services. If you are in online banking and a form like this pops up—or you’re automatically linked to an enrollment page—do NOT fill out these forms.

Real Verified by Visa invitations, or any legitimate e-mail from a bank or financial institution for that matter, will never ask customers to repeat bank account information, passwords, social security or other such personal information. Once fraudsters have this information, it is very easy for them to commit identity theft.

As with any phishing scam, Visa takes this issue seriously and has a system in place to identify and shut down fraudulent sites. Visa is working to identify sites related to this scam as quickly as possible and disable them. Visa-related phishing scams can be reported to phishing@visa.com.

ViewPoint Bank has strong security measures in place to protect your ViewPoint accounts from such cyberattacks. For information on how you can guard against viruses, malware and other computer attacks, please visit ViewPoint Bank’s online fraud and security center.