Fake Emails and Websites

Recognizing fake emails (phishing) & fake websites (spoofing)

Online fraud can occur when a criminal poses as a legitimate company or business in order to obtain sensitive personal data and then illegally conducts transactions on your existing accounts. These scams are often called “phishing” or “spoofing.”

Phishing

Fake emails (phishing) will often…

• Ask for personal information. They may claim that your information has been compromised, that your account has been frozen or ask you to confirm the authenticity of your transactions.
• Appear to be from a legitimate source. While some emails are easy to identity as fraudulent, others may appear to be from a legitimate address and trusted source. You should not rely on the name or address in the “From” field, as this is easily altered.
• Contain fraudulent job offers. These are often work-at-home accounting positions.
• Contain prizes or gift certificate offers. In exchange for completing a survey or answering questions, some fake emails promise a prize or gift certificate. They require you to give personal information in order to obtain the prize.
• Link to counterfeit websites. Fake emails may direct you to counterfeit websites that closely resemble a legitimate site while they collect personal information for illegal use.
• Link to real websites. Some fake emails link to legitimate websites. This is done in an attempt to make a fake email appear real.
• Contain fraudulent phone numbers. Never call a number featured on an email you suspect is fraudulent; it can be tied to the fraudsters.
• Contain real phone numbers. Similar to linking to real websites, real phone numbers may be featured in a fake email in an effort to make the email appear legitimate.

What to do...

If you receive an e-mail that looks like it is from Old National Bank or another well-known company requesting financial information or any other personal or sensitive data, please take the following actions:

• Treat the e-mail with suspicion.
• Do not reply to the e-mail or respond by clicking on a link within the e-mail message.
• Do not download anything or open attachments.
• Report the suspicious e-mail to the FTC and forward the e-mail to uce@ftc.gov.

If you have already provided personal financial information via e-mail and feel that your Old National accounts are in jeopardy, contact Old National Customer Service as soon as possible to report the suspicious activity. You can reach Customer Care by calling 1-800-731-BANK or via email.

Counterfeit websites (spoofing)

Online thieves often direct you to fraudulent websites via email and pop-up windows and try to collect your personal information. In many cases there is no easy way to determine that you are on a phony website because the URL will contain the name of the institution—this is spoofing. If you type or copy/paste the URL into a new browser window and it does not take you to a legitimate website, or you get an error message, it was probably just a cover for the fake site.

What to do…

When logging into your account, look closely at your browser. The address in the location bar should start with “https”—for example, https://www.oldnational.com. You should also see a lock icon at the bottom of the browser. If you double-click the icon, it should display security information about Old National.