My apologies

In a previous post I jumped the gun and pointed out the HSBC staff to be unprofessional. Infact, the reply was from a fraudster.

Here is the reply posted by a true representative of HSBC in Khaleej Times:

A COPY of the fraud e-mail was printed in yesterday’s issue under ‘Letters to the Editor’ as a reply to a letter from a reader without HSBC’s consent.

We would like to reiterate that this e-mail is a phishing attack targeting HSBC customers. It was sent by fraudsters claiming to be from HSBC requesting customers to click on an HSBC web site look-alike address where customers are requested to provide their private information.

A sample copy of the fraudulent e-mail is copied at the end of this message for reference.

With the assistance of Etisalat, HSBC IT Security globally succeeded in shutting down the bogus web site on 31 May 2006 which is the same day the e-mail was sent. We had issued Press releases advising the public about this fraud e-mail and reminding customers that HSBC would never request them for their confidential information in any unsecured channel of communication such as public domain e-mail. We also posted notices on our ATMs advising customers of the same.

We would like to clarify that Mr S. Wilson doesn’t work for HSBC and that the reply published is actually based on the fraud e-mail and that the details supplied are incorrect. Meanwhile, any customers who have any enquiries or doubts are requested to call our 24-hour Phone Banking Service on 800 404442.

For your information, the telephone numbers that are published in Mr John’s letter to the editor are not HSBC numbers and hence the reason why the customer did not receive a reply and not a lack of response from HSBC.

- Dina Kotby, Press and Communications Executive,
HSBC Bank Middle East Limited, Dubai.

I have gone ahead and changed the post heading as well.

My apologies.