Bank of Lancaster County is warning its customers to beware an online scam that already has cost several people hundreds of dollars — and some even thousands.

Phony e-mail surveys designed to pry loose bank customers' card numbers and PIN codes are circulating across the county and beyond, according to bank officials.

The survey opens with basic questions that scammers hope will lure the recipient into giving up their account numbers.

The survey "will ask a few questions that sound plausible before they then ask for (code) numbers," said Mike Lambert, director of communications for Sterling Financial Corp. "Ultimately, they are trying to get a number, turn around and use it to get money out of your account."

It's a scam that has worked on many county residents, officials say.

"And this obviously isn't the first one," Lambert said. "It's really kind of an industry problem. The whole idea of a fraudulent survey is something that sort of shows up every now and then."

Bank of Lancaster County officials became aware of this particular scam when recipients began calling a couple of weeks ago, Lambert said.

The person or persons behind the scam are likely e-mailing people across the county, hoping they have an account with Bank of Lancaster County, Lambert said.

"Some of (the recipients) are our customers; many are not," Lambert said.

Targets of the scam have contacted the bank about the e-mails.

An estimate of how many Lancaster County residents have fallen victim to the scam was not available.

"Almost daily, we are seeing victims of identity theft or an e-mail scam of some sort," Manheim Township Police spokesman Sgt. Tom Rudzinski said Tuesday.

"As much as we'd like to believe no one would fall for these, the reality is the criminals are able to lure us in," Rudzinski said. "And even if they can lure just one person in, they have benefited from their scam."

Earlier this month, a 28-year-old East Petersburg woman told police she had been duped out of $3,800, Rudzinski said.

The victim, a Bank of Lancaster County customer, responded to the survey and gave up her personal account information. The scam artist transferred the woman's money into an account in New Zealand, police believe.

This week, a 65-year-old Manheim Township woman told police she also responded to the survey.

It was a $489 mistake, police said.

The scam artist used that woman's account numbers to withdraw money from ATM machines in other parts of the state, police say.

Lambert said bank officials act quickly to shut down the account of a person who was lured into the scam. The criminals, however, also act fast, investigators say.

"How do you stop it? That's the hard part," Rudzinski said.

Bank of Lancaster County officials said they are working on it.

Fliers are being passed out at the bank's branches and alert messages are posted on the bank's Web site. Customers who call the bank's service lines are greeted with a prerecorded warning message.

Recipients of the survey are urged to contact Bank of Lancaster County — whether or not they are customers.

Lambert said bank officials investigate every complaint they receive about an e-mail.

"We use a service that specializes in shutting these down quickly. They are very good at disabling the Web site" or sender of the e-mails, Lambert said. "That's why we're interested in people contacting us."

Dismantling the online source of a particular e-mail is possible, Lambert said, but finding the person responsible for the e-mail transmission is much more difficult.

"We can get it shut down in a few hours. Actually coming up and arresting the individual is a little harder," he said.

Anyone who receives the e-mail survey or anything that resembles it is urged to call Sterling Financial's Customer Connection Center at (800) 225-5252. The e-mails can be forwarded to reportfraud@sterlingfi.com.

Sterling Financial is the parent company of Bank of Lancaster County.

• In a separate scam reported to Lititz police this month, an 81-year-old woman allegedly lost $165,000.

The woman was told by someone posing as a Publishers Clearing House representative she had won $1.5 million. The scam artist told the woman she must pay $165,000 in taxes before she received the prize.

The woman wired that sum to accounts in Israel and Cyprus, investigators said.

Lititz Borough Police are investigating that scam.

E-mail: bhambright@lnpnews.com