The legitimate domain for Bank of America is @bankofamerica. com. If the domain in your email is @bankofamerica. us, or @ bankofamerica. net or any variation it’s probably a fake.
If an urgent circumstance does arise, you’ll either be contacted by telephone, postal mail, or you’ll learn about it on the news. Keep an eye out for poor grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Phishing emails often originate from scammers outside of the US, so English isn’t the native language of the scammers. Their correspondence is often littered with errors and/or spelled according to British spelling conventions.
In particular, they’ll ask for Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, the PIN to your debit card or ATM card, or your Bank of America online login information. Bank of America will never ask you for any of the above in an email.
Scammers can be very clever, and if they can’t get you to give up your personal information directly, they will sometimes embed malware into links given in emails. The malware, which can be very hard to remove, can record personal information such as logins and passwords used to steal your identity.
The header of an email is the technical version of the TO, FROM, and SUBJECT lines. If you want to learn how to view the header in your email program, you can learn at https://mxtoolbox. com/Public/Content/EmailHeaders/
You can report these types of suspected fraud exactly the same way. Email abuse@bankofamerica. com or call 1-800-432-1000.
In addition, almost all antivirus programs have a free version. Look for a highly rated program with a good track record of success. A good source for reviews is cnet. com.
Better yet, switch to online banking and electronic billing. That way, a record is kept without the accompanying paper trail. In addition, it helps you familiarize yourself with your bank’s online protocols, making it less likely you’ll be fooled by a phishing email in the future.
