News and Information

FCAC issues e-mail fraud warning about "phishing" e-mail sent to Canadian financial institutions that claims to be from FCAC

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) has been notified by several Canadian financial institutions that have received a fraudulent "phishing" e-mail crafted to look like a message sent from the Agency.

These e-mails state that FCAC is investigating a complaint lodged against their organization, and direct recipients to click on a link in the e-mail to view the complaint. These e-mails DO NOT originate from FCAC. They are fraudulent.

FCAC's Compliance Branch will never ask any financial institution representative to click on a link to our website in order to obtain information on a specific complaint or compliance case. As such, any complaint-related or compliance case-related e-mail that you might receive that appears to be from FCAC and includes such links should be treated as Spam and deleted immediately.

There are well-established procedures for communication between Financial Institutions and FCAC's Compliance Branch regarding complaints and cases, and such communication would be directed specifically to representatives who are responsible for compliance and/or complaint-related matters within each financial institution.

We have reviewed our system and there is no evidence of intrusion. If you receive such a message, the usual protocol for fraudulent e-mails should apply.

To contact FCAC, visit the official Web site at www.fcac.gc.ca or call FCAC's Consumer Contact Centre at 1-866-461-FCAC (3222).