About Email Fraud
Overview — What is phishing?
Phishing (pronounced 'fishing') refers to fraudulent communications designed to deceive consumers into divulging personal, financial, or account information, including account user name and password, credit card information, and Social Security number. Email is most commonly used for phishing due to its low cost, greater anonymity for the sender, the ability to reach a large target group instantly, and the potential to solicit an immediate response. However, fraudsters have also used online pop-up windows, direct mail and phone calls.
Phishing emails often appear to come from legitimate financial institutions, insurance companies or retailers. Techniques such as a false "from" address, the use of seemingly authentic logos from financial institutions, or Web links and graphics may be used to mislead consumers into believing that they are dealing with a legitimate request for personal information. These fraudulent emails often create a false sense of urgency intended to provoke the recipient to take immediate action; for example, phishing emails frequently instruct recipients to "validate" or "update" account information or face cancellation.
A SMiShing attack is a type of phishing communication that is sent to your phone through an SMS text message.
For more information on phishing and how to protect yourself, please visit our Privacy and Security Center.
How to contact Ameriprise Financial about fraudulent emails
Ameriprise Financial will never ask you to provide confidential information over email or text message.If you receive an email that you believe could be fraudulent, immediately forward the message to anti.fraud@ampf.com. Do not remove the original subject line, or change the email in any way when you forward it to us. Any submissions to this email address will result in an auto-generated reply to notify you that we have received your email. If we find it to be fraudulent, we will immediately take appropriate action. If you receive a text message that you believe could be fraudulent, immediately contact us.
If you have already responded to an email with your Ameriprise Financial account information and you believe it to be fraudulent or if you need additional assistance, please contact Ameriprise Financial immediately.View our contact information.
Ameriprise Financial protects your privacy and personal information
Ameriprise Financial takes your privacy very seriously. Should our name be used in efforts to fraudulently obtain personal information, we will work aggressively to halt those operations.
In addition, it is important to know that Ameriprise Financial never sends emails requesting customers to reply in the body of an email with personal information, such as password, Social Security number, account numbers, mother's maiden name, etc.
How to protect your personal information
Fraudsters often create a sense of urgency to provoke you to take action immediately. There is no need to respond instantly to an email request. First, consider carefully whether the business in question would have sent you the request. If you are in doubt as to whether or not an email is legitimate, do not respond to it. If the questionable email offers a link asking you to provide personal information on a web page, do not click on the link, even if it looks genuine. When you receive an email with links, you may find it helpful to type the website into your browser manually and then bookmark the site for future use.
In any cases of uncertainty, a safe alternative is to contact the company in question directly through familiar communication channels, such as the phone number provided on a billing statement or credit card. You can also log into the secure message center of the company's website.
In all likelihood, phishing will continue to evolve into the use of more sophisticated tactics. For this reason, it is important to always think twice before you provide any personal information.