6 figures taken
 

First, my dad has been in business for over 30 years, does all the daily paperwork, and is not bad with computers. He has never fallen for a scam.


Yesterday the 18th my dad spent hours on the phone with a scammer. An hour into the calls he calls me. I tell him it’s a scam and hang up. That should be the end. But he is sometimes stubborn. Around 4 my mom tells me my dad has gone to get some pre paid Visa’s. WTF. I call him and tell him it’s a scam and to come home. When he gets home we call the scammer and I prove to my dad the guy is not security from TD. That should be the end.


Today the 19th. I get a call at 10:30. The computer is not working and he is with someone we own a business with in another city. He is saying something about an e transfer. I get to the store and the computer is fckd. Will not boot into windows. My dad and our business partner have already contacted the bank manager in the other city. He sees some suspicious activity. He head to a local branch.

The teller at Royal bank is great. She passes us off to the manager who is already on the phone with the bank manager at the other branch. We see multiple large bill payments to companies we deal with like Shaw, Telus, and BC hydro. She contacts loss prevention and says it may take some time, so we go for lunch. We get back and she tells us it will take 5 to 10 business days to get the money back. She sets us up with a new bank card. By the time she is done most of the money is back. Only 10k from 2 e transfers is remaining. Find out the scammer from day 1 had got my dad to go to some website on the office computer. Then it hits me, what about his other accounts?



We have a joint TD Visa for business so I check my TD app. I see almost 30K in strange charges. The teller at TD does not seem to care. She gives us a 1800 fraud number. I tell her I need a manager. She says the manager is on break. I ask her to check the account balance as I am on hold on the phone with TD fraud. The main account is at zero. I tell how much money is missing and how much is left in his other accounts. She tells me to move so she can serve another customer. I tell her again I need a manager. She finds one.

We go to the office and the manager tries to give us the 1800 number. i tell her I'm on hold with TD fraud. I tell her how much is missing and how much is left and the hackers could be still active. She jumps into gear. Within 10 minutes my dad's phone is blowing up with messages from TD showing refunds to the account.

Get home, still on hold with TD fraud. Call up TD Visa. Close to 30K was advanced from the credit card to my dads account. Get that fixed. Get the card canceled. They are sending a new card.

1 hour and 35 minutes later we get a hold of someone at TD fraud. They ask a bunch of questions and say they will investigate.

Now I have one computer that does not boot. Will be going to Best Buy tomorrow to get a hard drive dock to see what files I can pull off. Luckily I have a better computer I built as a replacement that we had not switched to that my dad can use. Will have to spend the next few days double checking all his accounts.

Stay safe people.

Gosh... it sounds like TD is total garbage...

How is your dad taking this so far?

Thread hijack /

Three years ago, I woke up and my phone data was not working. Did not think anything of it, went to work.
Around 10am, I decided to check my email on wifi, could not get in. Now I started to get suspicious

Story cut short, someone in Toronto managed to port my phone number by a new sim. Could be that they got my login for the provider, and requested a new sim, maybe they got my email instead. Who knows

Once they had my phone number ported, they also knew my email address somehow. Since my email had backup reset by phone number, they requested a new password by phone sms.

They now had my email, and essentially all accounts associated.

While all of this is going on, I also found out they tried to pull funds through PayPal, and tried to transfer from my RBC online account

Both were under 3000$, and both got cancelled because I caught it in under 10hrs. Seemed like they started at 7am Toronto Time, 2am Vancouver time, or whatever the zone difference is. Based by my provider and email time stamps.

Where does this tie in with RBC? Well..... I walked into RBC, told them to lock my cards right away. Guy at the counter takes my RBC debit, and starts blocking accounts
He did not ask for any id, my birth date, any verification at all. I'm standing there, waiting for him to ask me. About 5 minutes in, his calls his supervisor for additional clearance.

The first thing she asks is, did you verify this is so and so, and I just fucking stare him dead in the eyes and shake my head in disbelief.

Story cut more short, I had no access to my phone, debit or credit cards for 2 days, somehow I was hacked again about a month later, and had to go through the process again.

If anything suspicious happens to you, check your other accounts asap, and contact the according companies as soon as possible.
Set up warnings from you bank, for all associated accounts, for withdrawals over xxx$, I now get a text and email, anytime a purchase over 100$ goes through.
I removed phone reset linked to my email.
I reset all passwords, wiped my computer, scanned with proper software, got new cards, etc
I ran off cash for 2 days.
What an absolute waste of time

I had a friend, someone skimmed his debit card, and withdrew 20,000$ from ATM, this was probably 10 years ago.

I fear for elderly people, and others who do not pay attention to their accounts. Technology is great, but in the same time, there is so much scamming going on.

It's almost better to be in debt, or have all your savings in stonks, real estate, dogicoins, this way at least the scammers can't pull anything from your bank account.

/Rant

That's brutal, this 100% would happen to my mom without a doubt she is so naive and on top of that she now has the onset of dementia so she's not even all there all the time.

Hope it all gets taken care of, thanks for sharing.

Thank you for sharing

It was just a coincidence that this thread popped up and at the same time Indian scammers calling my phone like crazy, first spoofing the Telus 1-800 number, then they tried calling again spoofing Victoria police department.

Old people (both mine and my wife's) are the bane of our existence. Keeping these old people out of trouble, taking care of their numerous dr appointments, organizing restaurants for them that are accessible and "safe" is a full time job. No wonder she says shes busy even though she doesnt work.

Her parents would likely get scammed as well, just like mine. Lots of chinese scammers started using text and whatsapp to probably do a similar spoof now. They pretend to know you, ask for details about your life, and see if they can hack your logins.

What's with the uptick of this the past few days, they going wild... I got a text couple days ago "Hey Jenny, are you coming to yoga this morning?" and it was from a 406 number I though I'd be nice and say "Sorry, not Jenny maybe you typed 604 instead of 406 for your friend" and they said "Thanks for letting me know" and then started trying to introduce themselves... blocked them... and then before I knew it there was like 6 different numbers all reaching out calling me Jenny and wanting to get to know me/introducing themselves.

Like Jesus... sharks smelling blood in the water...

Spammers (especially those who take advantage of the elderly) are the rats of humanity. They should be trapped or poisoned.

as long as ppl keep falling for it we will see more and more scams coming out.
i have to explain and protect my parents from scams almost every week.
my dad is constantly asking me questions like why the bank is text messaging him

To add to Donks message regarding banks being useless in terms of verification, we have our mortgage with Scotia, until recently we did zero other banking with Scotia other than mortgage and LOC. when we first signed up the clown who finalized our mortgage tried to get us to sign up for some chequing account where you’d get $400 “for free” by just doing a few things. We set this account up and deposited 10k into it as that was one stipulation, he said basically set it up, take the $400, close the account.

Fast foreward we don’t see the $400, we enquire why, then it turns out you need all these automatic payments associated over 6 months bla bla bla. We say fuck this, we’re gonna close the account.

We walked into Scotia at first and renfrew (terrible location btw garbage emoloyees) and we say we want to close an account, my wife shows a picture of the account number on her phone to the teller. The teller then goes and grabs us an envelope with 10k in it and says the account is closed. We never once showed ID.. the picture of an account number was the verification..

Oh and another thing everyone should be doing it setting up VERY secure passwords as well as 2 factor authentication on -everything-

Last week I was about to hop in the shower and I see a message pop up on my phone saying “do you want to use this iPhone to reset your Apple ID password?”

I’m like wtf is this.. no.. my Apple ID is probably the most important password I have as on top of the 15+ years of photos I have in iCloud I’ve also got debit cards, visas, etc. all associated with it. I’m assuming I clicked some kind of phishing link somewhere that populated my ID and someone tried to reset it but it’s pretty scary.

In my line of work I run into a lot of people (mainly older people) who are worried about “hacking” in the traditional sense of a guy in his basement working his way through your router into your home PC and going through files to find bank info etc. this is virtually non-existent. The “hacking” that is done now a days is people just willingly giving away their information

Stubborn dads do this kind of shit. Thanks for posting man. Hope it all turns out ok.

Funny cuz I just noticed 2 x Skipthedishes charges on my CC which I did not make yesterday as well.

Luckily it's just CC and not my bank account. But damn, hopefully you guys get it all back

The other thing that makes this incredibly frustrating right now is how difficult it is to talk to someone at the bank.

Yesterday I tried to contact RBC Visa to dispute a charge and I was on old for 90 mins before I gave up and hung up the phone. Who has time to wait on hold for HOURS just to talk to the bank??

The bank is one of those places where if you're calling them, chances are you need to speak to someone QUICK. Yet they don't give AF.

It's very frustrating and yet as consumers we are trapped because (1) moving to a different bank is a PITA and (2) the other bank's hold times are probably just as bad or worse, so what is the point.

Record profits year after year and abysmal service

A 6th vacation home for the VP isn't going to happen if they hire more staff to serve you 68.... :drunk:

thats why i choose HSBC. ti's the most corrupt and snobby ass bank ive ever been to.

They have an "exclusive" line for "premier" clients (threshold used to be 300k in the bank, but now its dropped down to 100k. We were able to take money out from our canadian hsbc account in mexico with no fees at all. no fx, no wire fees, nothing.

https://www.reuters.com/business/hsb...gs-2021-12-17/

nowadays they got their hand slapped so many times that they are SUPER ANAL about identity and security. Its probably one of the safest banks around right now for identity theft. That being said they are still a huge piece of shit, but HSBC jade is a metal credit card PogChamp

Also that personal concierge was worth it. They can get you into bookings that are neigh impossible. We just had a company outing at Brock House next to Jericho beach. I think my boss used his concierge to book that venue as its usually reserved for weddings years in advance. If you have the means, hsbc jade is killer.

https://montecristomagazine.com/business/hsbc-jade

The only reason why I keep Premier is for Global Transfers; such a shitty bank overall and if it wasn't for GT I'd be long gone. I wonder if the Jade concierge is better than Amex's concierge?

I think so. The jade one is super bad ass.
Edit interesting read

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/commen...ress_platinum/

I worked there when the WII first came out. You couldn't find them anywhere. You probably would have more luck punching out a 13 year old kid leaving a Toys R Us with one, than getting one through us. I had a lady call in demanding one. She didn't care how we did it, but her grandson WOULD have one for Xmas. Which was...a month away. It took me 2 weeks. But I found one. All I did for two weeks, was call every Toys R Us, Game Stop, Walmart, Target, you name it, asking for one. I finally found one in some town in Ohio and the store promised to hold it. I got a messenger to pick it up and ship it. I was angry the whole time because it was such a ridiculous request, and she didn't even say thank you. Not even an acknowledgement when that package arrived at her house.

The peace and quiet for over a day last week with my cell phone because of the Rogers/Robbers/Fido outage meant no calls from "CRA".

Mandarin speaking robo callers called me about "unpaid taxes" from phone numbers in Peoria, Illinois and Scotland. LUL

He is kind of pissed they wasted 2 days of his life. They are still calling him telling him they can fix the computer but it's fkd. Back up is already up and running. Good thing my brother had set up drop box for all our business files.

Dad had 2 factor on his TD but turned it off because it was to much of a hassle. I told him to leave it on but like you said he is stubborn. I will be turning it back on.

They are. At my last job it was always the administrative assistant catching bogus charges and calling TD to get them to fix it. Stuff that never should've made it through like thousands of dollars on womens clothing and LEGO in Toronto, on a card that wasn't even supposed to be active anymore because it was expired and the replacement had already been activated, and they didn't say a thing.

I love helping my grandparents with their computer because my grandpa doesn't understand automation at all. He thinks everything you do on the web is handled by an actual person somewhere so when something breaks (like the cookie for their email login expires) I get to hear his fantastic ideas about what he thinks is happening.

We told them since they got their computer to never ever ever ever enter their credit card numbers or any banking info into it for any reason. If they want to buy something online they call me and I stop by and make sure it's legit and then I order it with my card.

So back to ducking Scotia..

I applied for one of their credit cards which has no international transaction fees and also gives 6 airport lounge accesses a year.

The card shows up.. my fucking name is wrong.. missing 3 letters ffs..

I loathe Scotiabank, if they were the last bank on earth I'd start storing my money in my mattress.

lol td allowed me to pick up a credit card with my name spelt wrong

bank manager calls me 4 weeks later saying they need to verify my ID