Community Bank of Santa Maria

CLICK THE LOGO ABOVE FOR ALL RECENT CONSUMER ALERTS

E-mail Claiming to Be From the FDIC – October 26, 2009

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has received numerous reports of a fraudulent
e-mail that has the appearance of being sent from the FDIC.

The subject line of the e-mail states: “check your Bank Deposit Insurance Coverage.” The e-mail tells recipients that, "You have received this message because you are a holder of a FDIC-insured bank account. Recently FDIC has officially named the bank you have opened your account with as a failed bank, thus, taking control of its assets.”

The e-mail then asks recipients to “visit the official FDIC website and perform the following steps to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage” (a fraudulent link is provided). It then instructs recipients to “download and open your personal FDIC Insurance File to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage.”

This e-mail and associated Web site are fraudulent. Recipients should consider the intent of this
e-mail as an attempt to collect personal or confidential information, some of which may be used to gain unauthorized access to on-line banking services or to conduct identity theft.

The FDIC does not issue unsolicited e-mails to consumers. Financial institutions and consumers should NOT follow the link in the fraudulent e-mail.

ALERT - CREDIT CARD SECURITY BREACH

MasterCard has informed us that it is working with law enforcement and a U.S. based merchant to investigate a possible compromise of card account information from the merchant’s systems. We are in the process of getting the information we need on our affected accounts so that we can take steps to protect you through fraud monitoring and, if needed, by reissuing cards. It is important for you to know that you are protected against fraudulent purchases with MasterCard’s Zero Liability policy.

Zero Liability is provided under the following conditions:

Your account is in good standing.
You have exercised reasonable care in safeguarding your card.
You have not reported two or more unauthorized events in the past 12 months.

As always, we encourage our cardholders to carefully review their statements and to let us know right away if they see any charges they don’t recognize. Additional consumer security tips are available at http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/learningcenter/stayingsecure/pfprotectyourself.html?GP=ILC-REDmigrated

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. Community Bank of Santa Maria takes your account security and privacy very seriously and we will keep you informed on this issue as it develops. If you have any questions or concerns, please call us at 805-922-2900 or 805-737-4064.

ALERT - PHISHING SCHEME

SA-20-2009
January 15, 2009

SUBJECT:	Fedwire Phishing Scheme
Summary:	Fraudulent e-mails claiming to be from the Federal Reserve Bank that warn of a phishing attack on the Fedwire system are reportedly in circulation.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is warning consumers, businesses and financial institutions to be aware of fraudulent e-mails allegedly from the Federal Reserve Bank. The fraudulent e-mails claim that a phishing attack has affected the Fedwire system and that restrictions are in place. The e-mails further instruct recipients to click on links within the e-mail for additional information.

The fraudulent e-mails have included various spoofed names and addresses in the "From:" line of the messages, including "Bank System Administration," "System Administration" and "Federal Reserve Bank." The e-mails contain the following message verbatim:

FEDERAL RESERVE BANK

Important:

You're getting this letter in connection with new directives issued by U.S. Treasury Department. The directives concern U.S. Federal Wire online payments.

On On January 1, 2009 a large-scaled phishing attack started and has been still lasting. A great number of banks and credit unions is affected by this attack and quantity of illegal wire transfers has reached an extremely high level.

U.S. Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in common worked out a complex of immediate actions for the highest possible reduction of fraudulent operations. We regret to inform you that definite restrictions will be applied to all Federal Wire transfers from January 6 till January 16.

Here you can get more detailed information regarding the affected banks and U.S. Treasury Department restrictions:

The message contains links to two Web pages that attempt to load malicious Trojan horse programs onto end users' computers.

Consumers, businesses and financial institutions should be aware that Fedwire operations are not restricted and are operating as normal, and should take the following precautions:

If an end user received the e-mail and clicked on any of the links, fully scan the computer using updated anti-virus software. If malicious code is detected on the computer, consult with a computer security or anti-virus specialist to remove the malicious code or re-install a clean image of the computer system.
Be aware that phishing e-mails frequently have links to Web pages that host malicious code and software. Do not follow Web links in unsolicited e-mails from apparent federal banking agencies. Instead, bookmark or type the agency's Web address.
Always use anti-virus software and ensure that the virus signatures are automatically updated. Ensure that the computer operating systems and common software applications security patches are installed.
Do not open unsolicited or unexpected e-mail attachments because of the risk of malicious code or software in the attachments. Instead, call the agency using a known and appropriate telephone number to verify the legitimacy of the message and attached file.
Be alert to different variations of the fraudulent e-mails.

Information about counterfeit items, cyber-fraud incidents and other fraudulent activity may be forwarded to the FDIC's Cyber-Fraud and Financial Crimes Section, 550 17th Street, N.W., Room F-4004, Washington, D.C. 20429, or transmitted electronically to alert@fdic.gov. Questions related to federal deposit insurance or consumer issues should be submitted to the FDIC using an online form that can be accessed at http://www2.fdic.gov/starsmail/index.asp.

For your reference, FDIC Special Alerts may be accessed from the FDIC's website at www.fdic.gov/news/news/SpecialAlert/2009/index.html. To learn how to automatically receive FDIC Special Alerts through e-mail, please visit www.fdic.gov/about/subscriptions/index.html.

Sandra L. Thompson

Director
Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection

ALERT - DEBIT CARD SCAM

Be Alert for a debit card scam. Someone is calling people in our area stating they are from Community Bank of Santa Maria and asking you to activate your debit card or your debit card has been suspended. This is not the practice of Community Bank of Santa Maria. Please do not give any information to them. If you have any questions, please contact us or your local police department.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

We will be implementing a new program to go into effect October 15, 2008 asking customers to verify specific transactions. We will not be asking customers for their complete card number. Listed below is the script we will be asking our customers:

“To help protect you against debit card fraud, we are introducing enhanced fraud protection for our cardholders. Now, when a transaction on your card appears to fall outside of your usual spending pattern, an alert is created. A fraud specialist or automated voice system will then contact you at home or your office to verify whether you authorized this transaction, which does not fit your historical card spending behavior. Part of the verification will be to ask you to confirm the last 4 digits of your Social Security number on file. If we are not successful contacting you, a decision will be made on your behalf to block future transactions until you can be reached for confirmation. Therefore, it is important that you provide us your most up-to-date phone numbers. This is part of our continuing effort to provide you with the best protection available when using your debit card. We hope you enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing your card carries these state of the art security features.”

If you have any questions, please contact an Officer at the bank.