CUNA Notifies Authorities of Fake CU Site

WASHINGTON-You have never seen a credit union like this before! A Web site, fraudulently posing as a credit union site, is providing consumers with more information than they want to see. The site appears to be a legitimate credit union site but when you visit it, it displays pornographic images, according to CUNA Associate General Counsel Mary Dunn, who said she has not seen the site herself. She told reporters that CUNA had notified the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and NCUA of the site. The FBI has opened an investigation, she said. The situation was brought to the association’s attention by a number of state leagues and credit unions, according to Dunn. Though using the .coop domain name might offer credit unions-and consumers-some protection from sites like this one, consumers generally would not know until they go to the Web site, Dunn said. “Another entity could set something up .com or .org and the consumer is not going to know the difference until they actually go on,” she said. “Once they go on, it sort of puts a cloud over any credit union and makes you very reluctant to go to any credit union site unless you like porn.”