whats the scam

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I tend to use the one in my address book by clicking on it. No chance of a typo then. Relying on the browser recognising a link might just get you to a false one you've used before.

[whisky-dave]

But I hadn't used that one before which is why on starting to type my username I thought hang on I don't normaly need to do this, which is when I looked up at the URL more closely.

[Mark]

Well, if you have visted a copycat site, then delete it from your browser history PDQ!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you do all the right things, these copycat sites are nothing to worry about. Sadly, many don't do all the right things.

[whisky-dave]

What are all the right things ?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Try reading the thread?

[whisky-dave]

You seem to think from your address book is the correct place get such things.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Using a URL you have used before and know is genuine is a good start, yes.

[whisky-dave]

Few people remeber such things, can yuo rememeber your banks URL I can't remeber mine I don't need to. One of the few I do remember is apple.com. I type that in and my browswer suggests "Choose another country or region to see content specific to your location and shop online." You see browsers use cookies so there's little reason to type in URLs you've previously visited.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Does that mean you just guess at it each time you want to go there?

You must have fun with phone numbers too.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Does it? Not the URL I use for online banking with Barclays.

Perhaps you don't remember that someone other than Barclays grabbed that name in the early days. Barclays had to use ibank. I often wonder how much they paid to sort that one.

But carry on chancing things. It's your money to give away.

[Andy Burns]

unless someone managed to dupe google (or hijacck your browser) into returning their scam site instead of the correct result?

I remember them using ibank.barclays.co.uk and then switching to bank.barclays.co.uk, but I don't remember them using ibank.co.uk

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It was barclays.co.uk which was registered by other than the bank.

[whisky-dave]

It's not the one I used either but it;s the starting point for them.

So yuo;re saying that isn't a Barclays bank site ?

and that ibank is ?

good luck with that.

Yes it is and I wouldn't give it to ibank.

I guess the women and bloke doing a high five proves it's OK. Which it might be of course but I don't think it's barclays or anything to do with them, but if yuo use that in yuor link history thats up to you.

A friend of mine has been contacted by Sky as they want his website address he registared some 15+ years ago as his name is Sky.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Since you don't know the URL, how can you possibly tell?

You are an absolute gift for scammers.

[whisky-dave]

I don't need to memorise URLs there's little point.

Yeah sure says the one that thinks

is barclays.

[alan_m]

The problem in the past was that some UK banks and credit card web sites didn't have the name of the bank or card in their web address (or for their login pages) so identifying some of the phishing web sites as bogus wasn't that obvious.

[Bob Eager]

Try typing ibank.co.uk into Google.

[Huge]

FWIW, Natwest's online banking is "

". They sure don't make it easy, do they?

[whisky-dave]

I did that's how I found out ibank isn't barclays even if it was 5 years ago, which indicated things change so a 5 year -old link in your address book might not be as useful as you think.