The Avondale resident said he received a call from a man telling him that he could be recipient of the prize from Reader’s Digest and all he had to do was call a Quebec phone number.
The Avondale resident said he received a call from a man telling him that he could be recipient of the prize from Reader’s Digest and all he had to do was call a Quebec phone number.
He knew something was wrong when the number looked like it came from Jamaica rather than Canada.
“I told him I wasn’t going to call the number because it was a scam. He said ‘Thank you and have a nice day.’”
Unfortunately, Anderson is generally the kind of person scammers like to get on the other end of a phone line, said Pictou County Crime Prevention spokeswoman Barb Smith.
He is elderly and usually home. He may also not be as familiar with computers as younger people so it is easier to tell him that he made a mistake and something needs to be corrected.
“We are still going with ‘stop, think and report,’” Smith said. “Stop what you are doing. Think about what is being asked of you and then report it. It’s not always that they can catch them, but it can stop it from continuing.”
Const. Ken MacDonald of the New Glasgow Regional Police Service said scammers look to gain a person’s trust by using common ground. For example, scammers will go door-to-door if they know a charity is getting to fundraise for a particular cause. He said emails can be elaborate looking so they mimic the design of a bank’s logo or website and phone scams now provide numbers for people to call back so they think they are legitimate.
So far, he said, 11 different scams have been reported to the New Glasgow police in the past month.
“The old saying, ‘You don't get something for nothing’ still applies,” said MacDonald.
Smith said the scammers also get more and more creative to keep ahead of people figuring them out.
“Most people will say that will never happen to me, I will catch on to that, but they are so realistic and so convincing,” she said.
Nova Scotia RCMP issued a warning Thursday about a woman in Digby who was scammed out of $35,000 on Monday because she believed she was getting a call from the Scotiabank Fraud Section asking if she had charged money to her Visa.
When the victim told them she had not, the suspect talked her into giving them remote access to her computer and online banking. The victim was told tellers at the bank were being investigated for fraud by the RCMP, and her accounts might be compromised.
The victim was also told the RCMP would be putting their own money into her account. Money was added to her account, which she later learned had come from her own line of credit. The victim was instructed to go to her bank and withdraw money.
The victim was then directed to attend other banks in Digby and deposit the money into specific accounts. The scammers called the victim frequently throughout the day with instructions, or asking for the status of their most recent demands.
The RCMP tell the public they should never provide financial information over the phone. Citizens are asked to be wary of unsolicited calls regarding financial information and check with your financial institution before allowing access to your personal information. If a person is unsure about the legitimacy of a caller, ask for a call-back number and check with your bank immediately. A person can report fraud to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) by phone at 1-888-495-8501 (9 a.m.-5 p.m. ET) or online at www.antifraudcentre.ca.
