Mountain West Bank Consumers Targeted by Phishing Scam

Phishing fraudsters appear to be constantly attacking some banks in the Missoula region of Montana, US, with one being Mountain West Bank whose authorities inform that the e-mail scam began in the 1st week of March 2009 and since then, it has gained momentum.

The e-mails that pose to be messages from web-admin@mtnwestbank.com or webadmin@mtnwestbank.com direct recipients to input their account details so that their account accessibility is not restricted.

The e-mails also provide a link which takes the user to a website that appears like the actual homepage of the bank.

Meanwhile, various forms of the phishing e-mail are being circulated, with different web links pointing to www.mtnwestbank-web14.com or www.mtnwestbank.com.

John Seeberger, President of Mountain West Bank Missoula Branch, said that a few of their clients divulged their account details, consequently, they lost money, as reported by Montana's News Station on March 20, 2009.

Mr. Seeberger further said that the bank was able to shutdown more than 40 of the cloned sites, but they were arising from all over the world.

Meanwhile, since the e-mail has been circulating within the customers' mailboxes for several days now, the Bank's official website is displaying an urgent alert message.

Accordingly, the Bank's officials inform people that the institution is not behind any of the fraudulent, phishing e-mails. Customers are required to be wary of these kinds of frauds to guard themselves. Moreover, none of the bank's customer databases have been attacked.

In addition, the officials remind customers that Mountain West Bank does not ask users to provide their private information like password or account number. Thus, users should not reply to these e-mails.

The Bank also urged users to dial 800-641-5401, the Customer Support number, or send the phishing message to stopfraud@mountainwestbank.com.

Giving hints on how one could identify phishing e-mails, the Bank stated such e-mails come even without any solicitation and address the recipient as "Dear valued customer" rather than specifically by name. There are also grammatical and spelling errors that indicate the fraudulent nature of the phishing e-mails, the Bank pointed out.

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» SPAMfighter News - 3/26/2009