Spam masquerading as "Federal Reserve" "FDIC"

[Why Syzygy]

They know English, so it isn't as obvious as all the other scams.
The real site for TX is: http://www.banking.state.tx.us/
The real site for the Treasury Department is: http://www.ustreas.gov/

gmail caught it, and I NEVER open spam. This one made me look.

from Federal Reserve <[e-mail]>
to @
date Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 8:56 AM
subject Important Notification!


FEDERAL RESERVE BANK

Important:

You're getting this letter in connection with new directions issued by U.S. Treasury Department. The directions concern U.S. Federal Wire online payments.

A country-wide phishing attack began on April 21, 2009. It's taking place hitherto. Therefore a great number of banks and credit unions is affected by this attack and quantity of illegal wire transfers has reached an extremely high level.

U.S. Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in common worked out a complex of immediate actions for the highest possible reduction of fraudulent operations. We regret to inform you that definite restrictions will be applied to all Federal Wire transfers from April 29 till May 8.

Here you can get more detailed information regarding the affected banks and U.S. Treasury Department restrictions:


http://treasurydept.e-banks.us/ ....

[canetoad]

1. Ain't there always

something 'not quite right' about the text in phishing scams? If you skim through it, it may seem almost plausible until you stop and read slowly...then it becomes apparent they were composed by the partially illiterate love child of an online translator and an ESL student.

[RoyGBiv]

2. They may know English ...

... but they don't know it well.

Hitherto? Who talks like that?

The verb tense problems make my mind scream.

The best thing they did was get that URL.

[canetoad]

3. Wherefore art thou sensibilities Roy?

Dost not all folk talketh in such a manner?

[Why Syzygy]

4. LOL!

Well, a lot of Americans are sleep deprived, as I was when I read it. Now the grammar errors are obvious. A bunch of us get wire deposits at the beginning of the month, so naturally we want to know if there's a problem with that! The link in the email is dead, fwiw.

eta: And, I also happen to be on the mail list for the US Treasury.
[e-mail]

[RoyGBiv]

6. Nay ...

Verily I cometh not to drink from thy fountain of excess verbiage and syllables. Forsooth, in mine own life hitherto, I have spake liketh a rednecketh.

Y'all.

I'm tickled by the fact DU's spell checker actually recognizes most of these words.

[Why Syzygy]

5. Yes..

the domains were the tricky part. The link itself is dead. I googled it before I clicked it.
As I wrote to CT, I was terribly sleep deprived and the grammar didn't jump out at me. The "hitherto" did, but :shrug: