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 confidential information by email, as it is not a secure method of contact.

How the scams work

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 web site that requests confidential personal information, which could include:

How to identify the scam

There are some commonalities that can help you identify the scams:

How to help protect yourself

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: