Is it real, or a spam scam?

[greatbear]

I'm not entirely sure, it looks awful legit to me. From my inbox:

DEAR Citibank_ Member,

Thiss e-mail was sent_ by t_he citibank_ _server to
veerify _your_ e-mail addres_.
You mmust cmpteloe this pceorss by clicking on _the link
below and enttering in the litlle window_ your Citbiank
Debbit full Card nummber and Card Pin that you use on the local Atm.
This is _done_ for_your poterction -b- because some_of our
_members_ no logenr have acsecs to their email adesrseds
and we must verify it.
To veerify your_ _email_ addres and accees your_ bank
account, clic on the link beloow.

(link not included just in the rare case this is indeed a scam.)

Hey, these days you can't be sure. With customer service being outsourced to overseas countries, not always is a full grasp of the English language expected.

I am writing this while scouring the PCs here for any more instances of the MyDoom virus. Apparently it ended up in the caches of both my and Jeff's PCs. Tonight's regularly scheduled scans picked it up. The server is fine. This shit is getting old.

Comments

[loganbeary.livejournal.com]

It is a scam spam.

No company would send an e-mail out asking it's members for their PIN's, account numbers, or SS#'s.

I also got one of these, and I don't even have a CitiBank card.

Windows Update

[perkk.livejournal.com]

Its called Phishing. Assuming you use Microsoft Internet Explorer like the statistical majority of users, if you apply the latest update from Microsoft, it will help protect you from some of these should you ever fall for one and click on the link. The link often uses a trick to hide to where its really going on the Internet but look like the site you think. The patch prevents this type of mis-direction.

[bearlover.livejournal.com]

Definitely spam. That one was in the news not too long ago.

[qbear.livejournal.com]

Ummm....I think he knew it all along....irony, anyone?

Yeah but...

[perkk.livejournal.com]

I figured the irony part, but not many know about the new patch which helps against some of this spam. Though the spam is less well constructed than normal. Its a copycat phisher trying to evade very simple keyword anti-spam filters, very amateur.

Spam Scam

[brutusbuffalo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. What they said. :)

[beardoc.livejournal.com]

What I find amusing is that I've received these (supposedly) from ANZ, Westpac, Commonwealth, St George and National Australia Bank. I wish I had this many bank accounts, but sadly, I don't.

And MyDoom unfortunately somewhere is using (whatever) @ hyslop.org as a spoofed domain for sending itself to everyone, so annoyingly, I'm getting back all the rejected mail. It's frustrating - about 4 out of 5 mails are the MyDoom mails.

[garebear.livejournal.com]

These are my favorite scams. The ones that use logos and convincing artwork are the best.

Personally I like to fill them out with realistic data. The passwords I give are usually filthy expletives, but I try to make the zip code match the address and use the correct number of digits for the credit card numbers, bank routing numbers and hope they try to use it.