A phishing attempt?

[ChuckJ]

I received an email this morning supposedly from Bank of America with the subject line: Important Notice: Online Banking Account Verification. The email told me that they had suspended my account because someone had tried to login multiple times on it and needed me to click a link to sign on and restore my account. I did not click the link because I have not had any dealings with Bank of America in several years. Then I read the email more closely. It has worse grammar than I do when I'm in full southern hick mode.  I figure this is either a very poor phishing attempt or BoA has hired either some 8 year oids or DUers to compose their emails. Below is the body of the email. Let me know what you think.

Notice
Dear valued customer,

During our usual security enhancement protocol, we observed multiple login attempt error while login in to your online banking account. We have believed that someone other than you is trying to access your account for security reasons, we have temporarily suspend your account and your access to online banking and will be restricted if you fail to update.

[FunkyZero]

Those have been going around for more than a few years. I've gotten them before from  "BOA".

[ChuckJ]

Those have been going around for more than a few years. I've gotten them before from  "BOA".

This is the first one that I'd ever received. Like I said, I haven't had in dealings with BoA in years, but I just forwarded it to their fraud department.

[Bad Dog]

This is the first one that I'd ever received. Like I said, I haven't had in dealings with BoA in years, but I just forwarded it to their fraud department.

I get them from BoA, Chase and USAA (which I have accts in).  They are getting better and better at looking real so, if I get one from USAA that looks legit, I go to my acct. on their website.  I always forward the fakes to their fraud depts.

[SVPete]

... It has worse grammar than I do when I'm in full southern hick mode.  ...

Thing is, when you do that you still have standard/generic American-English usage as your framework. The composer of that email clearly lacks familiarity with American-English usage and sentence structure. Though there is only one such error in the email, a failure to pluralize a word, "multiple login attempt error," that is clearly meant to be understood as plural suggests that the person who composed it is East Asian.

I think we occasionally get such phishing attempts, but we contact our bank independently and directly. We never click links in such emails.

[FunkyZero]

Thing is, when you do that you still have standard/generic American-English usage as your framework. The composer of that email clearly lacks familiarity with American-English usage and sentence structure. Though there is only one such error in the email, a failure to pluralize a word, "multiple login attempt error," that is clearly meant to be understood as plural suggests that the person who composed it is East Asian.

I think we occasionally get such phishing attempts, but we contact our bank independently and directly. We never click links in such emails.

the main idea for everyone is that no institution will email you something and ask you to click on a link... with the exception of YOU initiating a password recovery or something similar.
In the rare case that they do, for advertising or other, it's best to avoid them if you have any sort of login on the target. Go manually to the site and initiate your tasks.
And as a side note, treat phone calls the same way. If a bank calls me for some reason, I won't talk tot hem. I insist on calling them back so I know exactly who I am talking to.

[J P Sousa]

Must be the Russians. 

[ChuckJ]

Must be the Russians. 

I hadn't thought of that. I guess since the election is over they probably have a lot of spare time on their hands.

[ThisIsntSparta]

If you get something like this from a company you do business with, always manually enter the address of the company into the browser, or google the company and choose the official page. Most fake pages are up for such a short period of time that they do not rise up to the top in google search results. 

These phishing mails are created to direct you to either a fake page that will accept your credentials for later use or resale by the phisher, and may also bring a redirection to a site that will attempt to compromise your system with malware.

Forwarding it on to BofA fraud department was exactly the right thing to do, as many large companies will examine them, and request that the fraudulent site be taken down.  More will pop up, but that spam run is useless once the fake site is gone.

[Gamle-ged]

I get them from BoA, Chase and USAA (which I have accts in).  They are getting better and better at looking real so, if I get one from USAA that looks legit, I go to my acct. on their website.  I always forward the fakes to their fraud depts.

Exactly right, also from the same three organizations over time, USAA most recently. And I go immediately to my bookmarked links, rather the pull a Podesta...

 

[DumbAss Tanker]

Every fraud notice I've ever gotten was via phone call, never email...and they did not ask for anything except possibly to confirm the last four numbers, my home phone is in their data so if they don't know who they got hold of on it or what the rest of the card info is, that right there is a giant red flag.