Increasingly, Americans are receiving fraudulent e-mails that direct recipients to websites where they are asked to provide confidential personal and financial information. These e-mails may vary significantly. Some claim that the individual’s personal information is necessary to assist in the fight against terrorism or for some other alleged legal purpose. Other e-mails purport to be from government agencies or private sector entities, such as financial sector firms, Internet auction sites, or electronic payment services.

In these fraudulent schemes, commonly known as “phishing”, the fraudster sends an e-mail to consumers, falsely claiming to be from a legitimate company, in hopes of luring consumers to a “spoofed” website. The spoofed website mimics the legitimate website for the sole purpose of stealing the consumer’s personal information. At the typical spoofed website, consumers are asked to update sensitive personal information, such as name, account and credit card numbers, passwords, social security numbers and other information.

Greylock Federal will NEVER send an e-mail to you requesting personal information of any kind. E-mail notifications from Greylock Federal are informative and will not require personal information of any kind to be sent via reply, online form or otherwise. If you have concerns about an e-mail received from Greylock Federal, please contact us immediately at (413) 236-4000 or forward the e-mail to greylockws@greylock.org

The following measures may help you prevent yourself from falling victim to a "phishing" scheme:

1. Do not reply to or click on a link in an e-mail that warns you, with little notice or prior legitimate expectation that an account of yours will be shut down unless you confirm your billing information. Instead, contact the company cited in the e-mail using an authenticated telephone number or other form of communication that you are sure is genuine. Do not respond to the email in question, call or use contact information provided by the email in question.
2. Before submitting financial information through a website, look for the locked padlock on the browser’s status bar or look for “https://” at the beginning of the web address in your browser’s address window. The presence of a padlock and the https:// does not guarantee that the website is legitimate or secure. However, the absence of either the padlock or the https:// does indicate that the website is not secure.
3. Apply the latest patch for your web browser and/or operating system software (but be sure that the patch is legitimate).

Measures to Detect Phishing Attacks:

1. Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to determine whether there are any unauthorized charges. If your statement is late by more than a couple of days, call your credit card company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances and to determine whether they have mailed your statement.
2. Look for a domestic telephone number on a company or agency website, and call the number to verify the legitimacy of the web site. Many phishing attempts originate from outside the U.S. and thus are not likely to have a working domestic phone number. As a further precaution, particularly against U.S.-based phishing efforts, seek to verify the number, such as with directory assistance or company information that you know to be reliable.

Measures to Respond to Phishing:

1. Report suspicious activity to the FTC. Send the actual phishing e-mail to uce@ftc.gov. If you believe you have been defrauded, file your complaint at www.ftc.gov, and then visit the FTC’s Identity Theft website at http://www.ftc.gov/idtheft to learn how to minimize the financial damage from identity theft.
2. For additional guidance on how to avoid falling victim to phishing attempts, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) consumer help site at www.consumer.gov.
3. E-mail from Greylock Federal will ALWAYS contain a signature line referencing the sender/employee's name, title and telephone number. If you have concerns related to the e-mail, please call the Greylock Federal switchboard at (413)236-4000 and ask for the representative referenced. If the e-mail does not have such a signature line, please do not respond and contact us at your earliest convenience.