Sometimes you get emails pretending to be from legitimate sources,but they’re asking you to give away personal or private information.

This is called phishing.

What does phishing look like?

A phishing email may be disguised as one from the bank, or it may be a more obvious scam with strange logos and poor spelling

There are a few things to look out for:

• The email address is different to usual emails from your bank
• The message isn’t personalised or uses the wrong name 
• The message says you need to take action to stop something from happening

If you do receive a suspicous email you can report it to us by forwarding it to phishing@ulsterbank.com

When you receive an email you should check it for signs that it may not be from the company it appears to be from.

Check the email address. Is it the same as the email address you usually receive emails from, or just similar?

Check the email subject line; anything along the lines of “There is a secure message waiting for you”, “Security Alert”, “System Upgrade” and so on should be treated as suspect.

Check the message is personalised with information like your name, your postcode or part of your account number. If it isn’t personalised at all then you should be suspicious.

Look for a prompt to click on a hyperlink or a button, or to download a file – something like “Verify your account or password” or “update your security details”. These will likely take you to a copycat website where you will be prompted to enter your full details.

Be suspicious of any message that creates a sense of urgency, such as “If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed”. A legitimate company will not create a false sense of urgency.

Remember, never respond to any suspicious emails and don’t click on any links or attachments within them. Our emails will always contain one piece of personally identifiable information, like a partial postcode or name so that you can identify it's genuine. They may contain links to our websites, but they’ll never contain links that take you to a page that ask for any online banking details, like your customer number, password or card reader codes.

Ulster Bank will never ask you for your full Anytime Banking PIN, full Anytime Banking password, activation codes or card reader codes.