Citibank email scam does the rounds

SCAM EMAIL purporting to be from Citibank has started popping into inboxes everywhere.

But even if you are not a Citibank account holder, watch out, because this scam has recently also impacted Australian banks.

The email -- purporting to be from the bank -- tells you that the terms and conditions of your banking have changed and you are asked to enter certain account information in order to verify your acceptance of this. Of course the T&Cs have not changed and you are simply handing your account details to a third party.

The scam email appears as follows.

Dear Citibank customer,

We are letting you know, that you, as a Citibank checking account holder, must become acquainted with our new Terms & Conditions and agree to it.

Please, carefully read all the parts of our new Terms & Conditions and post your consent.

Otherwise, we will have to suspend your Citibank checking account. This measure is to prevent misunderstanding between us and our valued customers.

We are sorry for any inconvinience it may cause.

Click here to access our Terms & Conditions page and not allow your Citibank checking account suspension.

That link is to this.

And the workings of html mean that everything before 211.155.234.84 is ignored and you are sent to a webpage that is hosted by NANHUA FUTURES TRADING CO. LTD, Zhejiang, China.

Some of this new webpage has links to Citibank's own webpage so that it all looks quite kosher.

The urban Legends website snopes.com has useful information about this scam here.

Finally, using The INQUIRER web mail tracker, I was able to discover that the IP address that sent the email was hosted by AT&T Broadband unit based in Chelmsford, MA. so I hope that they have discovered the sender and contacted the legal authorities. µ