What is Phishing

“Phishing” is the term commonly used to identify email that’s sole purpose is to “fish” for personal information from people to aid in identity theft. Individuals will create dummy websites and pretend to be reputable company in the hopes of getting confidential information in the guise of a trusted organization. Financial institutions are common targets in the hopes of collecting bank account information, credit card details, phone numbers and email addresses of unsuspecting people and then either pilfering their money, falsifying documents or stealing their identity. It’s a serious crime and Meridian has partnered with an organization that operates 24/7, working to protect our Members from this kind of criminal activity.

The exact subject of the e-mail can range anywhere from warnings about identity theft to announcements about unclaimed prize money. Your “action is always requested”, and involves logging into your account to "verify your account information" or to "prevent a security threat" or to "claim your prize money". Dire consequences are often threatened if immediate action is not taken, like cancelled accounts or suspension of services.

Remember … Meridian will never send out e-mails asking you to provide identifiable personal information.

If you suspect a “spoofed” Meridian Credit Union website (a fake version of our own internet site), do not reply or click and links and please forward a sample e-mail to email.fraud@meridiancu.ca and/or report it to our Contact Centre at 1-866-592-2226.

How Phishing works:

• An individual receives an unsolicited e-mail from what appears to be a legitimate organization such as a financial institution. That e-mail is usually of an urgent matter claiming that a link inserted in the body needs to be clicked and the individual needs to log in with their personal information as quickly as possible.
• If selected, the link will take the individual to a fake website that looks just like the legitimate company’s own. These websites are designed so that the victim will provide information such as the debit card number, passwords and/or PINs, social insurance numbers, driver’s license numbers or account numbers. Once the person has input the information, the fraudsters have what they need to steal their identity.
  
  

Why target me?:

E-mail addresses, much like phone numbers and home addresses, are easily obtained. Information on the World Wide Web has become extremely vulnerable yet marketable. Fraudsters have thousands upon thousands of e-mail address waiting to be used and with them they:

• Select and/or target a company to misrepresent (i.e. Meridian, EBay)
• Send thousands, if not millions of e-mails to unsuspecting customers or non-customers (the act can be very random and fraudsters often will target people who are not customers of a company).
• Write an email in such a way as to illicit fear from its audience forcing people to click the link and enter personal information.
• Sometimes however the link will be clicked and the fake website will not ask for any information. Instead, the fraudsters are downloading “key loggers” and other viruses on the victim’s computer which will steal information from any legitimate websites they visit.
  
  

Recognize it!

Be wary of sudden pop-ups requiring information from you. If you are unsure whether this is a valid website, please contact the Quality Contact Centre at 1-866-592-2226 or via e-mail at qcc@meridiancu.ca.

Tips on how to Spot and Avoid Phishing Scams

• Protect your computer with anti-virus software, spyware filters, e-mail filters and firewall programs.
• Update your software when notified by the software company. This may include downloading new versions or patches.
• Do not reply to any e-mail that requests your personal information. Deleting the e-mail is the best preventative measure to avoid falling victim to a phishing scheme.
• Do not click on any link in an e-mail that you suspect may be fraudulent. The link could take you to a fake Web site or initiate the installation of unwanted software onto your computer.
• Do not call any phone number listed in the e-mail. These may be fake as well.
• Look for misspelled words. Look for these in the message or in the hyperlink if one is provided.
• Always follow safe computing practices.

Tip: Place your mouse over the link in an e-mail until you see a small box appear with the URL address.  If that URL address is different then the one you see in the e-mail, something may be wrong.  Do not click the link and forward it immediately to email.fraud@meridiancu.ca.

Report it

If at anytime you receive a phishing e-mail, please forward it to email.fraud@meridiancu.ca. By doing so, we can help track down the fraudster and work to put them out of business permanently.

If you are a victim

If at anytime you have provided personal and identifiable information in response to a phishing e-mail, please contact your branch and/or the Quality Contact Centre immediately.  You may wish to visit our section on Security and Identify Theft.