Consumer Blog

Phishing scam uses text message in Springfield

AG Nixon is warning consumers in southwest Missouri that the phishers are up to it again - this time sending text messages, hoping to trick customers of Empire Bank into giving out their personal info. This is the first phishing scam we've seen using text messages to people's cell phones. They send consumers to a bogus Web site that looks just like the bank site. Here, by the way, is the official Empire Bank site.

Technorati Tags: bank fraud, phishing, scam, text message, moagoconsumer, consumer protection

Posted by Travis on January 15, 2008 5:52 pm :: Comments (11) :: Permalink

11 Responses to "Phishing scam uses text message in Springfield"

Stacy says:

January 16, 2008 11:22 am

My husband, son, a co-worker of his and myself just now received the scam by text for our Central Bank Account. We use Sprint Phone Service, so I'm wondering if Sprint has sold our numbers???
Stacy

Deb says:

January 16, 2008 11:38 am

I received a text message on a Sprint phone today which appears to direct people to a phony website for Central Bank which is listed as WWW.centralbservices.com. The website doesn't support linking to any of the links show and won't even show the site menu. I do not have a Central Bank account but now they have my mobile number. The phony website has teh appearance of the Central Bank in Lexington, KY website. Please check this out with Sprint also.

Sherry says:

January 16, 2008 1:18 pm

I received a text message on my cell phone that read as follows:
"From customer@centralbservices.com; Note your Central bank web service is expired, for renewal please login using www.centralbservices.com ASAP 12:43 p.m. Wed. Jan 16."

I do not have an account with Central Bank. I noticed that the e-mail address "www.centralbservices".

super_chargers says:

January 16, 2008 5:02 pm

My wife and many of her co-workers got the text message for the Central Bank scam this morning. All of them had Sprint phones - none of the non-Sprint customers got the text scam - so that does beg the question:

Has Sprint sold the numbers?? Or have they been hacked??

Cindy says:

January 17, 2008 11:42 am

I am helping with the investigation on these text scams, and I can tell everyone difinitively that NO ONE cell phone # had been targeted. Those messages were blasted out to a series of successive #'s, many of which were not valid and a few that were. This is the same way they do it on the landline scams. The source that showed on the text message was 'spoofed' and was not really the sender. The only consumers who need to take any further action are those who logged on to the web site given in the text message and actually gave out their card #'s and PINs.
Hope this relieves some of the anxiety about selling or compromised cell phone numbers.
Cindy

Gary says:

January 18, 2008 12:31 pm

On tuesday jan. 15th I recieved a text message from info@seidenschein with the message reading, NOTICE Your empire bank online service is expired, for renewal please login using www.empireonlineservices.net ASAP This message was sent to my Alltel service. I don't have a empire account so they are making a wide search for victims. Hope they are caught.

Ben says:

January 18, 2008 6:28 pm

I got the exact text message as Sherry (above) did today, only it used my bank name, a false bank site (that didn't even come up when I tried to take a look at it, and it spoofed an email address from a dodge dealership halfway across the country. I called the dodge dealership and they were not aware of it. I called my bank, but they have bankers' hours so I just got their automated after-hours menu.

Curt says:

February 24, 2008 8:44 am

Same scam here. My wife and I, both Sprint Customers received similar text messages to those listed above; however this time it is Arsenal Credit Union and they referred us to a telephone number 801-704-0928. The sender was members@arsenalcu.org

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help...

Debbie says:

September 24, 2008 8:54 pm

I got the below via text message on my Spring phone...received at 8:23pm 9/24/08 Subject: You United Heritage CU account is closed due to unusual activity.call us now at 6126055222 (t was 7:32pm CST when I received text msg)

sarita says:

October 4, 2008 2:54 pm

I have sprint service and just received a notice from onlinealert@b.tmsg7.com stating that for security reasons your card has been locked please call 215-310-1135 for card activation. I dont have beneficial bank what is going on.