You may have experienced or read about recent incidents of unsolicited email messages masquerading as legitimate companies that trick recipients into divulging personal and financial information.
These “phishing” (also called "brand spoofing") emails send you to web sites pretending to be legitimate companies that ask for your personal and financial information.
At no time do members of BMO Financial Group
request personal or financial information by sending out unsolicited emails. You
should never send personal identification numbers or other personal confidential
information by email as it is not a secure method of contact. Never reply or click on a link inside an e-mail asking you to connect to and/or verify your account.
A common email scam uses unsolicited email to deceive consumers into disclosing confidential personal information. The deceptive email suggests clicking on a link or attachment for any one of the following reasons:
After clicking on an attachment or link from the unsolicited email, the user is taken to a bogus site that requests confidential personal information, which could include:
There are some commonalities that can help you identify the scams:
It is important to understand that there are ways in which you can help protect yourself from email fraud and web sites that request your personal or banking information:
BMO Bank of Montreal Online Banking: | 1 888 725-9801 |
BMO InvestorLine: | 1 888 776-6886 |
BMO Nesbitt Burns: | 1 877 873-7664 |
BMO Mutual Funds: | 1 800 665-7700 |
BMO Harris Private Banking: | 1 800 844-6442 |
Mosaik MasterCard: | 1 800 263-2263 |
Please send copies of any unsolicited emails claiming to have been sent to you by BMO Financial Group to online.fraud@bmo.com.
Some additional precautions include:
Canadians use debit cards millions of times a day at banking machines and point-of-sale terminals to access their accounts and make purchases.
About Debit Card Usage:
Taking steps to protect your debit card and PIN will help reduce your own risk of being a victim of fraud.
For further information, you can also visit the following sites:
Canadian Bankers Association
Interac
®*
Association