Bob received this text message on his mobile phone: "Hello, this is Scott Smelby from the Yahoo Bank. Kindly contact me for a vital transaction on: [email protected]". Which statement below is tru

Legitimate financial institutions communicate from official corporate domains (e.g., @yahoobank.com), not free consumer email providers like Yahoo Mail. Because any individual can create a @yahoo.com address in minutes, the use of [email protected] provides no authentication of organizational identity and is a classic social engineering red flag used in phishing attacks to impersonate trusted entities.

Not knowing the sender personally is not sufficient evidence of a scam, since legitimate first-contact messages from organizations are routinely sent to unknown recipients.

Replying to the suspicious @yahoo.com address does not verify the sender's identity, as the attacker controls that address and any response would simply reach the attacker.

The message is not legitimate - a respectable bank would never use a free consumer Yahoo Mail address for official customer communications involving financial transactions.