DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Possible fraud question

About two weeks ago I couldn't log onto my yahoo e-mail account and I had to go through and answer my questions and change my password.

Today I get an e-mail that came into my spam folder from "alerts@citibank.com" subject- e-mail address change

Then it gives me this message

A request has been received to change your e-mail addresses at Citibank.com:
Here are your current addresses :

"santojmc@aol.com"
"santoki1873@hotmail.com"

If you did not request this change, please click here to login with your user id and password and submit a ticket.

For your security, this message is being sent to both your old and new e-mail addresses.


I have never had citibank.

I do my un-employment through the internet and I have alerts sent to my e-mail when they put the money on my card.

I don't wnat to click on any of the links in my inbox but is this just a scam letter or do you guy's really think someone got ahold of my information and got a citi card with my information. Neither of those addresses they sent in the letter are mine.

It's probably nothing but i've never had anything like this sent to me. Kind of scares me.

Probably as innocent as Yahoo selling your info on a list to CitiBank,....

But I'd call CitiBank and find out, just to be safe.

In my opinion - you answered your own question. You stated you've never been with citibank. So why would they need updated e-mail addresses?

I don't know about unemployment - is your card through them?

Do yourself a favor - call citibank and ask them. Do NOT reply through e-mail. If there's something to it, they'll be able to let you know - on the phone.

NEVER
NEVER
NEVER
NEVER
NEVER
NEVER ........


OK ... got your attention?

Never click on a link to log in to your account unless, and only unless, you have requested the email from your financial institution.

Link in an email can be made to look legitimate, (Using code to mask the real address) but lead to a criminal website where they are more than happy to take your ID and password ..... oh .. and then all of your money as well.

Crooks send out these emails knowing that a small percentage of those they target will actually have an account with the institution in question ... and a smaller percentage will give them full access to their accounts.

Generally these fake websites get taken down fairly quikly .. but others pop up just as quickly.

As always, if you ever have any questions about an email, call your bank, or go directly to their website. (typing in the address, not clicking on a link).

Yeah my unemployment card is through them.

I definately didn't want to click on any of the links in the e-mail for obvious reasons.

Wasn't real sure about this. Just thought it was weird because two weeks ago it was like my e-mail didn't exist. Tried everything to get into it and I know I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary cause my password has been the same for 10 years. Probably should have changed it periodically.

I'll give citibank a call tommorow and see what's going on. Probably nothing but it's better to be safe. Some of the stuff people can pull off these days with identity theft is crazy.

As an aside .... I used to click on the links and fill in BS info for the crooks to try.

I loved it how "God Almighty" with a password of "gotofreakinhell" (cleaned up) always got a "Thank you for updating your information" response.

Look at the from email address first, did it really say 'alerts@citibank.com', or was that the name with some other email address (yahoo shows email addresses as name <email address>, so it could have been 'alerts@citibank.com' <fraud@fraud.com> or such).

Also, if you can look at the full header of your email (most, if not all email systems allow you to view the full header), look at the return path.

If in either case it were from citibank.com, it was likely legit. If it was something else, then it was a phishing email. Someone hoping you click on the link and enter private info. If you ever get any of these emails that you might think are not legit, never click on the link...open a new browser window and type in the site (aka citibank.com) yourself and log in that way. Never click on the links and enter info.

The only thing I can tell you that hasn't already been said is that if your instincts tell you something is phishy then you should probably listen to your instincts.

It is, in all likelihood, a flat out Phishing attempt.

Scammers construct emails to look *exactly* like an email from your bank would - and they do it for *all* banks, then they just start sending them out as spam to try to get people to click them.

The purpose is to trick you into clicking a link (which takes you to a very legitimate looking page - unless you pay attention to the URL) and entering your login data.
Once you do that, they can log in as you and syphon off all of your money.


As YTown stated, NEVER click ANY of these and if you are in doubt, CALL YOUR BANK.
Lastly, if you want to still change your password or whatever, open your browser and type in the web address yourself... never use a link in an email for sensitive websites.