'FIFTH THIRD BANK' Scam

Users should always be careful when receiving unexpected notifications. This is a common ploy exploited by con artists and it also is part of a new phishing campaign. Fraudsters are disseminating lure emails pretending to be an alert about a 'Suspicious Account Activity' sent by the Fifth Third Bank. Naturally, the actual Fifth Third Bank is in no way connected to these fake emails and its name and logo are exploited by the con artists as a way to make the emails appear legitimate.

The lure messages will claim that a sizeable purchase has been made on Amazon from the recipient's checking account. The supposed purchase could be worth hundreds of dollars ($456.99) and has supposedly exceeded the limit of the allowed transactions for the account. The fraudsters then urge users to immediately follow the link provided in the email to stop the transaction.

However, clicking on the link will take unsuspecting users to a dedicated phishing portal. The fake page will be visually similar to a login portal. Users will be asked to enter their online banking account credentials (User ID/Password) to access their account and stop the non-existent purchase. In reality, all entered information will become available to the fraudsters. The consequences for the victims could be severe, as the hackers could exploit the obtained credentials to take control of the associated banking account and siphon funds out of it. The resulting monetary losses could be significant.