It's all too easy to believe these days that your bank has failed and been seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The current crop of bank failures is ripe for scammers trying to fool unsuspecting account holders into handing over their personal information.

The FDIC has received numerous reports of a fraudulent e-mail that has the appearance of being sent from the FDIC.

The subject line of the e-mail states: "Check your Bank Deposit Insurance Coverage." The e-mail tells recipients that "You have received this message because you are a holder of a FDIC-insured bank account. Recently FDIC has officially named the bank you have opened your account with as a failed bank, thus, taking control of its assets."

The e-mail then asks recipients to "Visit the official FDIC website and perform the following steps to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage," complete with a fake link to the Web site. It then instructs recipients to "Download and open your personal FDIC Insurance File to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage."

This e-mail and associated Web site are fraudulent. Recipients should consider the intent of this e-mail as an attempt to collect personal or confidential information, some of which may be used to gain unauthorized access to online banking services or to conduct identity theft.

The FDIC does not issue unsolicited e-mails to consumers. Financial institutions and consumers should NOT follow the link in the fraudulent e-mail.