Preventing Online Fraud

Websites and Email

• False Websites and Email Security Alerts. Fraudsters often create authentic-looking but false websites. Their purpose is to tempt users to enter personal information. This information will then be re-used to try and access your bank accounts. Fraudsters are increasingly turning to email to generate traffic to these websites.
  
  

  Recently, customers of several financial institutions have received such emails and this activity is increasing. Such emails typically contain a link to a false website and mislead account holders to enter their logins and passwords on the pretence that security details have be updated, or passwords changed.
  
  If you ever get an email containing an embedded link, and a request for you to enter your details, treat it as suspicious. Do not input any sensitive information that might help provide access to your accounts, even if the page appears legitimate. Please remember that Griffon Bank will never send emails of this type to you.
  
  To verify legitimacy of the webpage you can and should click on the padlock symbol in the right lower corner of your browser and verify the secure server certificate. If the padlock symbol is not even present, then it obviously false website, because all of the internet banking services providers use SSL128 encryption.

419 Frauds

• Advance Fee or so called "419 Frauds". These are unsolicited emails offering the recipient a generous reward for helping to move a staggeringly large balance of funds, usually in US dollars. These funds claim to be anything from corporate profits, accumulated bribes, government funds to unclaimed funds from a deceased person.
  
  The transactions typically require the recipient to pay something like a fee/tax/bribe to complete the deal - this is the Advance Fee. Such fees will be lost.
  
  A recent development is to convince the recipient that the funds are ready to be moved by getting them to log into a fake bank website and look at a specific account which shows a credit balance of tens of millions of dollars. These funds do not really exist.

Lottery Fraud

• Online Lottery Fraud. These are unsolicited emails which advise that the recipient has won a prize in a lottery. To obtain the funds the recipient has to reply. A request will then be made for bank details to allow for funds to be transferred. They may also ask for a handling/processing fee. This fee, if paid, will be lost. Also any details given will probably be used in other frauds.