[conspire] Fraudulent e-mail addresses (was: ...Straffic data breach)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> For Barbara Corcoran, $388,700 is probably pocket change.  

But making yourself look like a hapless idiot in front of the entire
world: priceless.  ;->

(I gather that this idiot is some sort of celebrity, but I've never
heard of her before.)

> Meanwhile, at my house the my wife answered a phone call reportedly
> from my bank asking about some transaction.  She gave me a note with
> the bank's phone number.I set the note aside and looked up the bank's
> phone number.  It took some time to to finally get a person. Then I
> had to answer a set of security questions.  Now I was sure I was
> talking to the bank and they were sure I was who I claimed to be. 
> Then my call was transferred a couple more times and lastly to the
> bank's fraud department. Yes they had called because I had made some
> unusual recent transactions.  This took half an hour of my time, but I
> thanked them for being diligent.  

That's unfortunately about as efficient as the (correct, non-fraudulent)
process is likely to get.  You and your wife (obviously) did the right
thing in setting aside the note and switching to primary documentation
about how to contact your bank.

What I'd _consider_ doing in such cases, instead, is call the number on
the note (after making sure you aren't making a long-distance toll call
to some weird country) and saying 'my wife received an inquiry wanting
to discuss transaction X'.  When they start asking questions, politely
decline on the basis that they are in no way authenticated and you have
no way to now whom you're actually talking to.  Ask if this is a
Security Dept. inquiry about the transaction.  If the distant party says
'Yes', then say 'Fine, I'm going to telephone my bank's Security
Department, so I'm confident I'm talking to who I wish to talk to.'

Then, proceed to follow whatever you consider the most-efficient means
to call Security Department.

Occasionally, banks will let you handle Security Department inquiries by
logging into their online banking.