(You can click on an image to see a larger view.)

Let's take a few moments to examine spam. You can see by the image above that Bank of America sent a warning that my account had several logon attempts. This specific message was sent to "undisclosed-recipients" and starts with "Dear member." I knew immediately it was spam as I don't bank there, but why wouldn't they address it to me if it were on my account? My bank knows who I am. That was a pretty good give-away. But lets look to at the source of the message.



When this is put in the Junk Email folder in Outlook, you can see the Bank of America image was linked to a valid image, but the security symbol was linked from USAA, a competitor of Bank of America. The message is short and sweet, and the link it refers the receiver to isn't going to a bank domain at all, http://racheljohns.com/Bankofamerica.com/Online/index.html. Rachel Johns likely was a victim and part of her site was hijacked by the spammer. The link is a forgery, although racheljohns.com is accessible.

When you receive that email from your bank, ask first if they would contact you this way. Then, ask them. Call your bank using a number you know, not one provided in the message. It may be faked too. Report the message you received and ask if they want it forwarded to them. If they do, get an email address, forward the email, and delete it from your system.