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CBP Advisory: Beware of phishing scam

U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) placed a notice recently on their Info Center site about a phishing scam. What's a phishing scam? Here's the description on wikipedia: Phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

In this particular scam, the perpetrators are emailing or calling pretending to be CBP and asking for ATM or credit card info. CBP posted the following to keep in mind and avoid being scammed:

  • CBP does not generally call anyone concerning consignments, monetary instruments (checks, money orders, cash, lottery, inheritance, ATM cards, etc.), that are allegedly being held.
  • CBP Officers do not threaten people to make payments of any kind, so if you get a call like this it is a scam.
  • CBP does not send unsolicited emails to anyone for anything. The only exception is if you have sent an email to the official CBP Web site, www.cbp.gov requesting a response. Legitimate emails from CBP employees will end in @dhs.cbp.gov.


For additional information see this original post: CBP Fisher SCAM

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