January 12, 2011

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: "Account Insurance from FDIC" or "FDIC Insurance." The message tells recipients that their "account has been denied insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation due to suspected violations of the Patriot Act" and goes on to ask recipients to "verify through our IDVerify," stating that "information will be checked against a federal government database for identity verification."

Purportedly the message is being sent from "Donald E. Powell, Chairman Emeritus FDIC; John D. Hawke, Jr., Comptroller of the Currency; and Michael E. Bartell, Chief Information Officer."

Both this e-mail and the associated web site are fraudulent.  Recipients should consider the intent of this e-mail as an attempt to collect personal or confidential information, or to load malicious software onto end users' computers and should not click on the link provided.

The FDIC does not issue unsolicited e-mails to consumers.