ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The NCUA issued a fraud alert for all federally-insured credit unions about a recent phishing attempt to obtain credit card account numbers and expiration dates.

In reported cases, fraudulent e-mails were sent to credit union members and to the general public stating that the, "National Credit Union Administration temporarily suspended your account due to fraud attempts." The e-mail then requests a call be made to a toll-free number provided to reactivate the account. The phone number in the phony e-mails has an Albany area code of 518 and the e-mail appears to originate from the NCUA Region 1, Albany office.

The new alert states that the NCUA does not ask credit union members or the general public for such information and anyone who receives an e-mail from the NCUA asking for account information should consider it as a fraudulent request.