The two scams are, credit card via the phone, and "phishing" by email, is a new threat effecting many people. Please read below, so that you too do not fall victim to fraud.

VISA and Mastercard Fraud - People are receiving phone calls at home from "Visa" or "Mastercard" Fraud departments (which are fake). NEVER, NEVER give your card number, or three-digit number found on the card back, to anyone over the phone who calls you.

The scam works like this: A person calls, gives their name, and states that they are calling from the Security and Fraud Department at VISA. They may provide a Badge number. They state that your card has been flagged for an unusual purchase pattern, and they are calling to verify. They state the bank name, and ask if you have purchased a product like "an Anti-Telemarketing Device for $497.99 from a marketing company based in Arizona"?

When you say "No", the caller says they will be issuing a credit to your account. They then verify your address, and provide you with instructions to call the 800# listed on your VISA card and ask for Security. They advise you will need to refer to a control number they furnish.

They then ask to verify the card in your possession. They indicate there are three numbers on the back of the card used to make internet purchases, and ask that you read those three numbers back to them. The scammers indicate they wish to verify the card is in your possession. WHAT THE SCAMMERS WANT IS THE THREE DIGIT NUMBER ON THE BACK OF THE CARD. DO NOT GIVE THAT NUMBER OUT!

Phishing Fraud- There has been a barrage of e-mails to consumers that warn of problems with an account or promote a special offer, and then direct you to a web site that appears to belong to a reputable company like America Online, Earthlink, AT&T, Yahoo, VISA, Amazon.com, eBay, etc. This is the latest scam created by hackers call "Phishing".

Phishing is the practice of sending fraudulent e-mail messages to addressees requesting them to supply confidential information. The message can be directed at a smaller number of targeted recipients, but is most often mass-mailed or "spammed" to thusands of potential victims. The e-mail isdisguised to look like a request from a legitimate organization such as a thrift, a credit card company, or a retail merchant with which recipients may already have a business relationship. Often the message includes a warning regarding a problem related to the recipient's account and requests the recipient to respond by providing specific confidential information. The format of the e-mail typically includes proprietary logos and branding, a "From" line disguised to appear as if the message came from a legitimate sender, and a link to a website or a link to an e-mail address. All of these features are designed to assure the recipient that the e-mail is from a legitimate business source when in fact, the information submitted will be sent to the perpetrator.

Victims may be directed to provide personal account information by responding to the e-mail, or they may be directed to click on a link that takes them to a legitimate looking webpage containg a form on which they are instructed to provide the information. Typically, the information requested includes items such as account numbers, passords, PINs, Social Security numbers or other personal identifying information that will allow the perpetrator to gain access to the victim's accounts, steal the victim's identity, sell the information to others seeking to do the same, or all of these. A consortium of banks, credit unions, credit card companies and online retailers has established an anti-phishing web site, Anti-Phishing.org This web site contains information regarding Phishing, the types of e-mail subject lines phishers use and a form to report Phishing activity.

The following are tips on how to avoid being lured by these Phishing scammers:

1. If you receive an unexpected e-mail stating your account will be closed unless you confirm your billing information, DO NOT reply or click on any links that may be included in the e-mail.
2. Contact the company named in the e-mail to confirm if the information requested is legitimate. Companies do not ask customers to confirm personal information by sending an e-mail or on a pop-up menu.
3. Avoid e-mailing personal and financial information. Always check to be sure that the "lock" icon is on the browser's status bar. It means your information is secure during transmission.
4. Report suspicious activity to the Federal Trade Commission . If you believe you have been scammed, file your complaint at Federal Trade Commission , then visit the FTC's identity Theft web site at Federal Trade Commission /idtheft to learn how to minimize your damage.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PROCEDURES FOR OPENING A NEW ACCOUNT:

To help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities, the USA Patriot Act requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person (including business entities) who opens an account.

What this means for you: When you open an account, we will ask for your name, physical address, date of birth, taxpayer identification number, and other information that will allow us to identify you. We may also ask to see your driver's license or other identifying documents. We will let you know if additional information is required.

We recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of personally-identifying information that may be submitted to us when you visit our website.

The information we receive depends on what you do when you visit our site. This is how we handle the information we learn about you from your visit to our website.

If you visit our site to read or download information on our web pages such as press releases and checking and savings account information:

We collect and store only the following information about you: name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, aol.com, if you are connecting from an America Online account, or a similar domain corresponding to your Internet Service Provider "ISP"); date and time you access our website; pages you may have visited on our site; and Internet address of the website from where you came to visit our website.

We use the information we collect to measure the number of visitors to the different pages and sections of our site, and to help us make our site more useful to visitors.

If you visit our website to use interactive banking tools such as financial calculators and self-tests:

You may be asked for personal information in order to complete the requested analysis or evaluation. This information is NOT retained. If you identify yourself by sending an e-mail or filling forms such as applications, check reorder forms, contact forms and guest registers:

You may be asked for personally-identifying information in order to process your e-mail, form or application. This information may be retained by us and our business partners for processing and to facilitate decisions. Information you submit to us is treated no differently than any information you might provide in a written format such as a brochure application, reorder slip to order checks, or a letter.

We protect and safeguard the privacy of users of our on-line services, just as we do throughout the rest of our business. We will use personal information to identify you, to communicate with you, and to help us answer your questions.

We will NOT sell personally-identifying information to a third party for the purpose of solicitation or provide personal information to a third party for its own use.

Sometimes we send our customers information about our products and services. If you do not wish to receive this information, or if you believe that your personal information is incorrect please contact us. We will investigate the situation and if appropriate update our records.

If you have any questions that are not answered in this section please contact us.

Our website brings together a combination of industry-approved security technologies to protect data for the bank and for you, our customer. It features a VeriSign-issued Digital ID for the bank's Internet Service Provider hosting our website, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol for data encryption, and a router and firewall to regulate the inflow and outflow of server traffic.

Secure Data Transfer

Once a server session is established on an https secure page, the user and the server are in a secured environment. Because the server has been certified as a 128-bit secure server by VeriSign, data traveling between the user and the server is encrypted with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. With SSL, data that travels between the bank and customer is encrypted and can only be decrypted with the public and private key pair. In short, the bank's server issues a public key to the end user's browser and creates a temporary private key. These two keys are the only combination possible for that session. When the session is complete, the keys expire and the whole process starts over when a new end user makes a server session.

Router and Firewall

Secure forms must filter through a router and firewall before they are permitted to reach the server. A router, a piece of hardware, works in conjunction with the firewall, a piece of software, to block and direct traffic coming to the server. The configuration begins by disallowing ALL traffic and then opens holes only when necessary to process acceptable data requests, such as retrieving web pages or sending customer requests to the bank.

Using the above technologies, your Internet loan application and check reorder transactions are secure.