The short version
A real Interac e-Transfer notification comes from @payments.interac.ca and its links point to interac.ca (or a subdomain such as et.interac.ca). Nothing else.
If either the sender domain or the link domain is anything else, it is fake — regardless of how convincing the logo, the name, or the amount looks.
Check 1: the sender's real address
The display name in your inbox is typed by whoever sent the message. It proves nothing. Tap or hover the sender name to reveal the actual address behind it.
Legitimate notifications come from an address ending in @payments.interac.ca — usually catch@payments.interac.ca or notify@payments.interac.ca. Support correspondence comes from the same domain.
These are the patterns that catch people out, all of them fake:
- Interac in the mailbox, junk in the domain — something like
interac.etransfer@followed by a domain that is not interac.ca. The word "interac" before the @ sign is free to type and means nothing. - Free mail providers — any address ending in
@gmail.com,@outlook.com,@hotmail.com, or similar. Interac has never sent a transfer notification from a consumer mailbox. - Misspelled lookalikes — interrac, lnterac with a lowercase L, interac-payments.com, interac.ca.secure-login.net. Read the domain right to left: the last two parts before the first slash are what matter.
- Plausible fintech-sounding domains — names built to sound like payment infrastructure. Interac does not delegate notifications to third-party sending domains.
Check 2: where the link actually goes
Do not tap the button. On a computer, hover over it and read the URL in the status bar. On a phone, press and hold the link until a preview appears, then read it without opening it.
A real deposit link is on interac.ca or a subdomain of it. Interac uses short links on et.interac.ca for deposit notifications, so a URL of that shape is expected and normal.
Read the domain carefully. In interac.ca.example-login.com, the real domain is example-login.com — "interac.ca" is just a subdomain someone else created to fool you. The domain is always the part immediately before the first single slash.
The tells that do not depend on the address
- You were not expecting money. The most common fraud is an unexpected transfer followed by an "oops, I overpaid, please send some back" message. The original transfer is reversed later; the money you sent back is gone.
- It asks you to log in to your bank through the link. Interac never needs your banking credentials. That page exists to harvest them.
- It pressures you. "Expires in 1 hour", "final notice", "your account will be suspended". Real transfers sit for 30 days.
- It arrived as a text with a shortened link on a service like bit.ly. Interac uses its own domain.
- The amount is oddly specific and large. A precise figure is a device to make you look twice and click.
- It asks for a fee to release the funds. Receiving an e-Transfer is free at every Canadian institution. See e-Transfer fees by bank.
What to do with a fake one
- Do not click anything — not the deposit button, not an unsubscribe link, not an image.
- Report it. Forward the message to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre and report it to your own bank so they can warn others.
- Delete it, and mark it as phishing in your mail client so similar messages get filtered.
- If you already clicked and entered your banking login, call your bank's fraud line immediately and change your password from a different device. Speed matters more than anything else here.
What to do if the money was already taken
Act in this order: call your bank's fraud line, change your online banking credentials, then file a report with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Our guide on what to do after an e-Transfer scam covers what banks typically refund, what they do not, and the realistic odds of recovery.
A safer habit than checking every email
Stop treating the notification as the thing you act on. When a message says money is waiting, open your banking app directly — not through the link — and look. If the transfer is real it will be there. If it is not, you have lost nothing but ten seconds.
Turning on Autodeposit removes the problem almost entirely. Funds land in your account automatically, there is no security question and no deposit link to click, so any email asking you to click one is self-evidently fake.
Related guides
- Got scammed by an e-Transfer? What to do
- Interac e-Transfer scams in 2026
- Sent an e-Transfer to the wrong person?
- Can an e-Transfer be reversed?
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