Oak Bay Police received a report on March 2 from a local resident who was scammed out of ten thousand dollars. The Oak Bay Police want to remind the public that these scammers are very sophisticated and are well rehearsed in their craft.
They will obtain your phone number through a variety of means and will call you with minimal information. They pretend to be the bank, BC Hydro, Revenue Canada, Police, a family member or any other business. As they speak to you, they gather snippets of personal information that they can put together and paint a bigger picture of who you are.
In this particular case, they pretended to be the RCMP and stated the victims credit card was compromised and they would aid him in getting his money back. They will use many different tactics, but the common one is to keep you on your cell phone or have you call them back at a certain number while you attend a business to purchase gift cards like Google Play, Apple iTunes, or other gift cards.
They will have you scratch off the covered area on the back of the card. Once they get the serial number from you, the cash value of the card is immediately drained, and it is worthless to you. If they feel you’re vulnerablee, they will continue to manipulate you to purchase even more cards until your bank account is drained. In this case the person had been scammed once before and they called back to take advantage of him again.
Remember, these financial institutions will not call you this way and have you purchase gift cards. If you don’t recognize the phone number on the call display, don’t answer it. If you do answer the call and they start asking you questions about financial issues or tell you your bank account has been compromised, or even your grandchild is in jail, immediately hang up. Do not continue to engage them in conversation.
Block the number and then call the agency or financial institute the scammers are pretending to be by obtaining the real phone number from the phone book or online. Change your passwords immediately and do not use simple passwords. Use different passwords for different applications.
