Phishing Email Scam, Resident Loses Thousands
The police are once again urging people to “remain vigilant regarding phone calls, e-mails and other correspondence from unknown persons that attempt to obtain personal information or other sensitive data,” saying that a recent email scam purporting to be from a local bank “resulted in the loss of several thousand dollars from one resident who responded.”
A police spokesperson said, “Once again the Bermuda Police Service would like to remind members of the public to remain vigilant regarding phone calls, e-mails and other correspondence from unknown persons that attempt to obtain personal information or other sensitive data.
“The practice is commonly referred to as ‘phishing’.
“This misleading e-mail claiming to be from Butterfield Bank – asking recipients to update their security details – was a recent example and resulted in the loss of several thousand dollars from one resident who responded.
Email trail provided by the police:
From: Butterfield Online <d.medina@theret.org>
Sent: 04 February 2019 4:58 PM
To: Butterfield Online <noreply@butterfiled.bm>
Subject: Important Notice: Our system indicates error on your profileDear Customer
Our system indicates error on your profile.
We have placed your profile under scrutiny and urge you to validate details with immediate effect.
Visit any Butterfield branch near you or use our 2mins online validation platform.
Follow here to begin now
Yours Sincerely
Butterfield Limited
“It is strongly recommended that such e-mails be ignored,” the police added.
“In addition, residents are reminded that personal information regarding banking details, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers and computer access are valuable and that this information should never be relayed over the internet or phone to unknown persons.
“Any incidents of suspected internet fraud should be reported to the Financial Crime Unit on telephone number 247-1757 or via the e-mail address fraud2@bps.bm.
“Advice on how to avoid and report scams can also be found at https://www.gov.bm/how-avoid-and-report-scams.”
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“2mins” & “@Butterfiled.bm” email address lol Seriously, who fell for this?
Some idiot!
a Bermudian!
that’s what um saying must be an elder.
There are so many glaring error warnings in that e mail. Where I work we have regular exercises to learn about such scams and how to spot them. Maybe the police or Government Information (we pay for them in taxes) could run some classes or publish ways to spot the scams for the benefit of the public.
Not governments problem! Do you own common sense exercise! Always looking for the Government to solve your problems!
The government advertises constantly on the radio crowing about what they’re “doing”. They also have a government TV channel. Pethaps they could use these resources to inform Bermuda about something useful, rather than taxpayer-funded self-aggrandising party political broadcasts all the time.
Agree, but what looks like a no-brainer to us may not appear that way to the uninitiated. Sad that the person got scammed. I’m pretty sure that the banks and the like always advise people about responding to mail and clicking on certain links, etc., but you can’t cover all people.
It more like the bank and not the gov that got to educate their customers base on how to properly identify their establishment on the internet. and they need a solution of verification when these emails are in countered.
My solution would be to generated a id number for all correspondence. them have an automated system provide validation. example this system could be a phone number where the code and be typed in or even better a correspondence verification section on their web page. there system will verify the correspondence and it will send an email to the email on file that will be for customers record showing that the request verification at what time and should the date the correspondence was sent to them.
The implementation this solution is very easy to implement. let me know what tools you have access to and I can guild to a solution.
That message screams ignore & delete.
“From: Butterfield Online ”
d.medina@theret.org – All you needed to know it wasn’t real.
Not even remotely convincing.
Agree Ringmaster. This wasn’t me but please, all be mindful of our peers. Some people have only just gone smart phone. So please some sympathy. We are not all so tech savvy. Ask yourself this, could you send a fax? Re-needle a turntable?. I’d go as far to say apply a wound dressing. Times change. Lets support and help each other
I may be a bit of an odd case but my answer to all of those questions is yes. So let me pose this question to you, would you send a fax back to a business partner in the US if the fax number began with 011? No different here, its only email addresses vs a fax number. If it doesn’t look right you shouldn’t be sending anything. The concepts aren’t different just the tools we use.
@Justasuggestion. Many of us are fortunate to be taught how to spot fake e mails. People who are not tech savvy are sitting ducks for these scams. My point is that there needs to be a public exercise to help everyone and prevent these scams as far as possible.
Yes, I can do all those tasks you mention, even sew on a button! Have a good weekend.
The big clue here, as in nearly all scam emails, is the grammar/punctuation/spelling errors on nearly every line:
To: Butterfield Online
Subject: Important Notice: Our system indicates [an] error on [should be with or in] your profile
Dear Customer [no comma]
Our system indicates [an] error on [should be with or in] your profile.
We have placed your profile under scrutiny and urge you to validate [your] details with immediate effect.
Visit any Butterfield branch near you or use our 2mins [no space or hyphen between 2 and mins, mins should be min] online validation platform.
Follow here to begin now [no full stop or colon]
Yours Sincerely [no comma, and no line space]
Butterfield Limited