Phishing

You may have experienced or read about recent incidents of unsolicited email messages purporting to be from genuine companies that deceive recipients into revealing personal information.

These "phishing" emails send you to websites that look like a legitimate company's website that ask for your personal and financial information.

At no time does John Hancock request personal or financial information by sending out unsolicited emails. You should never send personal identification numbers or other personal confidential information by email as it is not a secure method of contact.

What a phishing email looks like
Phishing starts when unsolicited emails are sent out asking customers to click on a link or attachment to update or change personal information, apply for additional products, avoid having accounts suspended or closed or to claim prizes. After clicking on an attachment or link from the unsolicited email, the user is taken to a fake site that requests confidential personal information, which could include bank card numbers, user IDs, passwords, personal identification number (PIN), credit card numbers, social security numbers (SSN), account numbers or other personal information.

How can you identify these scams?
There are some common elements that these type of scams use that will help you identify them:

• They are designed to look and feel of the legitimate website
• They are most commonly sent out through unsolicited emails, containing links or attachments
• The web address will often have the @ symbol or a numeric address (eg.123.456.1.2). The address may also include the word, phrase or text 'jhancock' to make it appear authentic.

How you can help protect yourself
It is important to know that there are ways you can help protect yourself from email fraud and websites that request your personal or financial information. If you receive an email pretending to be from John Hancock that asks for personal or financial information, do not reply or click on the link in the email. To verify that the email is legitimate, contact us immediately.

Other ways to protect yourself:

• Review your financial statements regularly for unauthorized or suspicious transactions.
• Never send personal and/or financial information via unsecured email.
• Do not trust email headers as they can be easily forged.
• Always enter your John Hancock website address using your bookmarks or any of our published URLs.