So fine they'll never see ya leavin' by the back door

[venta]

I've just got an email, inviting me to visit a website to confirm my log-in details for my internet banking.

It says:

Dear client of the Halifax Internet banking,

Technical services of the bank are carrying out a planned software upgrade for the maximum convenience of the user of online-services of the Halifax Bank. We earnestly ask you to visit the following link and to confirm your bank data:

https://www.halifax-online.co.uk/_mem_bin/FormsLogin.asp?source=halifaxcouk

This instruction has been set to all bank customers and is obligatory to follow.

Now, I don't bank with the Halifax, but we'll let that pass for now.

Out of curiosity, I followed the link. It looks like a reasonably plausible internet banking log-in site, with a handy banner ad warning you of email fraud, and explaining they'll never ask for your bank details via email. Nice touch.

In fact, a bit of checking verifies that it actually takes you to the Halifax' genuine log-in site. If I go to the Halifax' website, and click on "sign-in", it takes me to exactly the URL above.

I've completely failed to understand the point of this spam. If it had taken to me to a mocked-up site, hoping to steal my details, I could have understood. It seems very unlikely that the Halifax are genuinely going for this scatter-shot approach to notifying their customers (in rather poor English) of some changes.

Have I missed something very obvious ? Am I the target of some very clueless, wannabe scammer, who's understood that you're supposed to send out fake bank-mails, but failed to set up the necessary infrastructure to steal details ?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

Oddly, the thing that leapt out at me from that email, and rang my "No! Evil awaits!" alarm was the use of the word "earnestly".

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes... I think I should stop using the word "genuinely", as it intends to have exactly the opposite effect to what I want :)