July 15, 2026
Three simple reflexes to beat fraudulent emails
Fraudulent emails are better imitated every year: fake messages from your bank, fake parcel deliveries, fake tax refunds. The good news? Three simple reflexes are enough to beat the vast majority of them.
1. Urgency is a red flag
"Your account will be closed within 24 hours", "Reply immediately"… Scammers want you to act fast, before you have time to think. A real institution never threatens you like that. Faced with a pushy message: breathe, and take your time.
2. Look at the address, not the name
The displayed name can say "Desjardins" or "Canada Post" — anyone can write whatever they want there. What matters is the full email address between the angle brackets. If it looks odd (jumbled letters, unusual ending), it’s almost always a scam.
3. When in doubt, don’t click — use the front door
Rather than clicking the link in the email, open the official website yourself the way you usually do, or call the number on your documents. If the message was real, you’ll find the information there. If it was fake, you just avoided the trap.
In Quebec, the most common imitations claim to be Desjardins, Canada Post, Hydro-Québec or Revenu Québec — often with a "refund" to claim urgently. Knowing which names keep coming up here is already half the work.
These three reflexes — and several others — are at the heart of our Cybersecurity topic. We practice them together, with real examples from your own inbox, at home anywhere in Montreal, until they become second nature.
Frequently asked questions
I clicked a suspicious link. What do I do?
Don’t panic. Don’t fill in any form, close the page, and change the password of the account in question from the official website. If a bank account is involved, call your institution — the number on the back of your card, never the one in the email.
Want to go further?
We’ll walk you through all of this in person, at home, at your pace — and the first lesson is free. We travel across the island of Montreal, from the Plateau to Rivière-des-Prairies.
Book my free lesson