DOES STANDARD BANK REALLY CARE ABOUT PROTECTING THEIR CUSTOMERS FROM BANKING *****, OR ARE THEIR BOLD STATEMENTS JUST AN EMPTY PR EXERCISE???

DOES STANDARD BANK REALLY CARE ABOUT PROTECTING THEIR CUSTOMERS FROM BANKING *****, OR ARE THEIR BOLD STATEMENTS JUST AN EMPTY PR EXERCISE???

Some six months ago I began receiving a series of emails from “Standard Bank” informing me that I had a quantity of ‘UCount points’ with a considerable R value to redeem.

I was immediately suspicious of the notifications for several reasons; I was not addressed personally; I had not registered for such a program with such a bank; no name, account or participant number was listed and the values of the promised balances varied between notifications.

To date I have received more than a hundred of these suspicious phishing expedition emails.

Being reasonably ‘tech savvy’ and aware of how dangerous these solicitations can be, I made sure that I did not open the emails and also refrained from opening the attached files as urged by the sender.

After some months, I decided to do a little investigating myself and checked on the source of this spam. I was surprised indeed to discover that the emails came from a range of what appeared to be legitimate Standard Bank email accounts.

Believing that the bank needed to know about these activities, I called in at the local Standard Bank branch to verify the legitimacy of both content and source. The consultant duly confirmed that I was indeed not registered on what was a real and legitimate Standard Bank loyalty program and confirmed that the headings in the emails was not to Standard Bank protocol.

“These are **********.” He stated emphatically.

I then asked him the million-dollar question: Why then are the emails emanating from Standard Bank email accounts?” I handed him a long list of the sources email addresses and asked him to check them.

Expecting them to be bogus, I then received an unexpected shock.

He informed me that more than one of the email addresses were indeed real and indeed operative, while the rest were either obsolete destinations, cancelled ones or not listed.

He then quickly removed himself from the process by handing back the list and giving me the email address of the Standard Bank division / department dealing with these matters (***).

He then suggested that I refer the matter over to them.

That was almost two months ago.

I have since tried to make contact with Standard Bank’s ‘phishing police’ on three occasions and received not the courtesy of a reply or even an acknowledgement of receipt to my emails.

Which brings me to the essence of my complaint;

If this is how Standard Bank ignore client concerns in the fight against ********ity, phishing ****s and banking *****, are they not supporting a practice that threatens all South Africans?

Making ‘tough’ but empty anti-***** and *******ion statements and appearing to be committed, without commitment to follow-up or remedial action is surely dereliction of their duty?

I cannot understand their lack of the most rudimentary interest when a customer comes forward offering detailed information to help fight a rampant ***** with suspicious overtones!

If the sources of these ******** attempts do indeed originate from within Standard Bank itself, (as the evidence indicates), suspicions of our banking system and the implications for the bank’s customers is chilling indeed!!!

Banks are traditionally held to the highest of standards in honesty and security, but how can one have confidence in such circumstances?

Nevertheless, given the above, I believe that one is entitled to deduce that:

a. Despite official statements to the contrary, Standard Bank does not consider attempted ***** a serious ******** offence, but will ‘make the right noises’ and announcements to placate concerned clients.

b. Standard Bank is having its communication channels hijacked / compromised in some way and is unsafe.

c. Standard Bank is not interested in responding or attending to client alerts and rectifying such matters.

d. (Dare we suspect?), that someone at Standard Bank could be either engaged, complicit or condoning such ******** activity through its continued lack of response?

Whatever the case, Standard Bank is seriously hollow in its publicly stated intention to stand against all forms of banking ***** and specifically the prevention of 'phishing' schemes.

Should we treat other assurances they might offer in a similar light?

But perhaps, given the state of our country, we should not expect any better?