Email and online Fraud

At MetroBank,N.A., we value the safety and privacy of your personal information. We have become aware of an increase in phony emails, often referred to as “phishing” or “spoofing”.

Phishing is the name given to the technique of stealing personal information from Internet users. The information phishers want is usernames, passwords, account numbers, credit card numbers and social security numbers.

Why do they want this information? Usually to commit identity theft or fraud... in other words, to either withdraw or spend your money or to use your identity to set up loan accounts and credit cards to spend money in your name. Often, these fraudulent purchases are put up for resale and the personal data can also be sold on to others.

Spoofing is the term for falsified e-mail addresses that appear to come from a sender when in fact, the message is really being sent by a spammer. They can be difficult to spot and cause many problems, both for recipients and spoofed e-mail address owners.

Scammers may ask you to reply directly or click on a link that takes you to a fraudulent website that appears legitimate, in an attempt to collect your personal and account information for the purpose of committing fraud.

Protect yourself against email or online fraud by: 

• never respond or reply to an e-mail. phone call, or text message that: Requires you to supply personal information. It is not our practice to ask for your  MetroBank Online User ID or password in e-mail

• Pay attention to the URL (Uniform Resource Locator), or address, of a web site link included in the email and the email address itself. Malicious web sites may look identical to a legitimate site, but the URL may use a variation in spelling or a different domain, such as '.net' instead of '.com'...

• Never disclose your personal information or financial information such as a credit card number, account number, driver’s license number, or social security number in response to an unsolicited email. 

• If the email requests that you click a linked provided in the message, check the address to help determine if it is legitimate.

If you think you may have provided personal or account information in response to fraudulent email or website, change your password and monitor your account activity closely and report the case to us at 1-888-414-3556.