How to check an email is genuine

Fake 'phishing' emails are designed to look genuine and are used by fraudsters to extract your personal details from you for financial gain. Find out what to look out for.

If you’ve chosen to receive communications from M&G via email, it’s important to note that you will never receive an email from us asking you to divulge any personal information. This includes your M&G account information or ‘My Account’ registration details such as your PIN.

From time to time, the M&G name and logo have been misused by organisations and individuals unconnected to M&G for fraudulent purposes. These misuses include unsolicited communications with requests for money, personal details, and goods, and claims that M&G is the guarantor of financial transactions.

These suspicious ‘phishing’ emails may also ask you to click on a link which will take you to a site that looks like a genuine M&G website.  A phishing email is also likely to start with an impersonal greeting or no greeting at all and may also contain typing errors and grammatical mistakes.

This type of impersonation is not just experienced by financial institutions like M&G, but also by retailers, mobile phone providers, the FCA and even government agencies (such as HMRC and police).

Remember:

• As a rule of thumb large companies (especially well known brands) and government agencies will not contact you using a free webmail account
• Instead they will use designated email accounts that share the domain name of their company, for example genuine M&G email accounts in the UK will end with @mandg.co.uk
• This is not foolproof, however as criminals can forge someone else’s domain name to hide the true origin of an email (known as domain spoofing)
• If there is any doubt or suspicion then contact the company concerned using their publicly advertised contact details to check if the email is genuine

Contact us straight away if:

• You receive an email message or any other communication claiming to be from M&G that looks suspicious. Do not respond to the email.
• You think you may have been a victim of a fraudulent scheme involving the M&G name or logo.