False 'Bank of China' web site sealed
(Shenzhen Daily)
Updated: 2004-12-09 15:34
A fraudulent Web site purporting to belong to the Bank of China had been discovered, the Southern Metropolitan News reported.
The fake Bank of China website cheating customers of their account numbers and passwords is sealed off by the police. [sina]
A resident, surnamed Yao, said he received a text message Wednesday noon, saying the Bank of China had opened a series of online banking services on the Web site
www.956666.com, and customers were welcome to log on the Web site for the services.
Yao went to the Web site and found people were being asked to key in their account numbers and passwords. Yao became suspicious and read the text message again, noticing that the number was different from that of the Bank of China had been using to text him messages.
Yao had a credit card with the Bank of China, which would send him confirmation messages whenever Yao had transactions involving large sums of money.
Yao telephoned the bank's customer center and asked for the bank’s official Web site address, which is
www.bank-of-china.com.
Yao went back to the fake Web site, and discovered that the Web site was opened at 7:15 p.m. Monday. However, the news on the Web site was old, dating back to Nov. 25.
The Bank of China turned the matter over to the police.
Bank staff said the official Web site was reliable and confidential, and fraudsters could not retrieve personal information of bank customers.
A computer specialist, identified as Li, said the fake Web site had been sophisticatedly designed. The thieves would be able to obtain account numbers and passwords right after it was keyed into the Web site, Li said.
The bank has reminded people to stay on the alert and not to give their account numbers or passwords to anyone.
