ERIN 鈥� Police are once again warning people about scams after an Erin resident was bilked out of $50,000 last week.
色控传媒County OPP officials say the victim received a phone call on Jan. 17 from someone posing as a fraud investigator from a local bank.
“The victim said the scammer had a lot of detail about them [as well as] their banking information,” police stated in a Jan. 23 press release.
“The scammer was asking a lot of questions about them, getting the victim to reveal additional personal information and asking for them to stay on the phone as it was for the best interest of the ‘fraud investigation.'”
Police say the conversation lasted over five hours.
“The victim was told that their banking cards were no longer valid and that a courier would attend their address to come pick them up and say a pre-arranged ‘password’ at the time of retrieval,” police stated.
“The scammers then took $50,000 from the victim’s bank account.
“The victim then suspected they were being [scammed] and reported the incident to police.”
‘Stay alert, educated’
OPP officials are encouraging residents to “stay alert and educated” to avoid becoming a victim of fraud.
They say anyone who “receives an unsolicited phone call or message asking for personal information (name, birthday, address, phone number, bank information, SIN number) or payment via gift cards for a product” should hang up the phone and block the phone number.
Police provided the following warning signs to help spot fraud when receiving unsolicited messages:
- emails, text messages or phone calls at odd times of the night;
- creation of a false sense of urgency;
- spelling errors;
- lack of punctuation or capitals in sentences;
- automated messages;
- random links or attachments; and
- generic business or company name.
Scam victims should call police and also report the incident to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre by calling 1-888-495-8501 or visiting .
For more information on scams and frauds, visit .
