A message purportedly from your bank or brokerage arrives and demands you immediately confirm your social security number and other sensitive information or your account will be closed. Obviously a phishing scam, right? That's what one reader thought about a letter he received in the mail last week on what looked like E-Trade letterhead, only to be told be ETrade that it's for real, and that they need the information to comply with the Patriot Act.
"On January 31st I received a letter dated January 18th via the U.S. mail allegedly from ETrade," the reader wrote. "The letter, signed by Randy Tripp, ETrade EVP and General Auditor, demanded that I either fax, phone, or mail back a form with personally identifying information - name, date of birth, and social security number - within 15 days of the day they sent it or my account would be closed. So the deadline is February 2, giving me two days to respond."
The purported ETrade letter read in part:
"Our number-one priority is safeguarding our customers' account and other personal information. From time to time, for the protection of our customers, we review customer accounts to make sure account holder information is complete and up to date. Please take a minute to confirm and/or update your account information by utilizing one of the following methods to provide the information requested below:"
After giving him his choice of fax, phone, or a return envelope, the letter then stated that:
"We must receive your additional/updated account information no later than fifteen calendar days from date of this letter in order to ensure that your account remains open."
Since all that wording is virtually identical to your everyday phishing scam, the reader was naturally suspicious of the letter. "The only thing it has to legitimize it is the last four digits of the account number," the reader wrote. "It provides no explanation for the request at all. If this were sent to me in an e-mail, it would scream phishing scam. Why should the same request sent via postal mail be viewed any differently? How do I know, other than perhaps the four digit number, that I'm actually sending this information to ETrade?"
The reader tried calling the 800 number in the letter but was unable to get through by ETrade's imposed deadline. "No one answers at any ETrade 800 number after 30-plus minutes of waiting," the reader wrote. "They can close my account for all I care - after this, I'm going to move it someplace else anyway. Their demand is ridiculous. If this request is legitimate, it certainly does not appear so. Mr. Tripp is an idiot if he thinks anyone would respond to this under these circumstances."
At the end of the week the reader was finally able to get through to an ETrade representative. "The agent was honest with me and explained that the whole matter, which had caused their call center to be overloaded, was completely mishandled," the reader wrote. "It was explained to me that the Patriot Act requires them to verify information through Equifax, and that my account -- and most other ETrade accounts, apparently -- had Equifax 'problems.' It seemed that although they knew that my address was correct for mailing, Equifax had no record of anyone actually occupying this residential address. Well, the letter didn't ask me to affirm that I occupy this address - they just want name, DOB and SSN. This is information that they already had!"
Every cloud has a silver lining, though. "I am appreciative of one thing," the reader wrote. "The first thing I did was open a Wells Trade account and cleaned out the ETrade account. It turns out that by ending my relationship with ETrade and moving to Wells, I'll save $3 per trade."
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