I randomly got some email from a banking company is this a scam?

Question

I got a random email from Lloyds TSB saying this: " This e-mail has been sent to you by Lloyds TSB Bank to inform you that your account will be deactivated within the next 48 hours due to several unsuccessful login attemps on your account." Im not affiliated with this company whatsoever.

Answer 1

100% scam.



That is a scammer trying to hi-jack your bank account, but since you don't have a bank account with that bank, he missed. That scammer just hopes that you do have an account with Lloyds TSB so he can steal your money.



Yahoo and all email companies, banks and all companies in the entire world will NEVER ask for your password, pin or date of birth. No Exceptions Ever.



Ignore and delete that email and any others demanding such information.



If you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of needing your password, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.



Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.



Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money, email address or identity to a scammer.



If you google "yahoo email bank phishing scam", "email hijacked viagara porn spammer" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts of victims and near victims of this type of scam.

Answer 2

If it asks for any personal information then it is fake(phishing). But since you are not affiliated with that company then someone used your email for it. I assume that since the email talks about unsuccessful login attempts, it could be that someone typed in their email with a typo, which coincidentally was your email, while creating an account. This would explain the message because now having your email instead of theirs, trying to login with their correct email would result in no match. But what are those odds?

Answer 3

It's called a phishing scam - they send it to everyone hoping that a) a small % of the people they send to are actually Lloyds customers; and b) that one of them will be stupid enough to fall for it and give them their online banking details so they can empty their account



Mark as spam and delete it

Answer 4

Actually I would report it rather than delete it. Depending on what e-mail client you use there should be an option to report a phishing scheme.

Edit: According to Lloyds website "Please forward suspicious emails or details of text messages that ask for your personal information to [e-mail] and then delete it from your inbox without responding. This information will be used to help reduce fraud online." (from http://www.lloydstsb.com/security/phishing.asp)

Answer 5

scam, mark it as spam to send anymore to junk files