Scotiabank impersonation scam costs woman $14K, case reviewed

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A Hamilton woman says she was swindled out of nearly $14,000 in cash by impostors as well as coming face-to-face with someone tied to the web of scammers. “They knew every single transaction I made through all of my accounts, so, immediately, this has to be Scotiabank? How can it not be Scotiabank? They knew everything,” Ashlee Hibbert says. Mortgage payments, a line of credit and a slew of recent purchases from Hibbert’s Scotiabank accounts was enough information to lead the Hamilton woman into a web of a scam. One that ended up draining nearly $14,000 of cash from her. “$2,500 at Shoppers Drug Mart, $1,000 dollars at the dollar store, $1,000 dollars at Walmart, one, two, three, four times,” Hibbert says. She says the incident happened back in April, when she received a phone call with a Scotiabank caller ID. A woman was on the other line, notified her of apparent illegal activity and asked her to turn her cards to an out of town branch. Hibbert was unable to accommodate the immediate request but the woman sent a courier driver to pick up the cards. “I went up to him, he was in a silver, Toyota Prius, and wore glasses. He could’ve been a random Uber driver, I really don’t know,” Hibbert says. “He says ‘where am I going with this?’ I said, ‘oh, you’re going to London.’ He said ‘oh, okay..’ then the woman on the phone says, ‘he knows where he’s going, just give him the cards.’” Hibbert says she was then transferred to a man claiming to be head of Scotiabank’s security, looking to verify her and gain access to her accounts. At that point, Hibbert says something did not seem right, and the man became irate with her. The real Scotiabank notified her that she was caught in a scam. Following inquiries for restitution Hibbert says Scotiabank initially deemed they did not find anything wrong. “It doesn’t end there, you do have additional rights and ways of appealing that decision. There’s also an ombudsperson as well that you can appeal to, to have your case reviewed,” says Cybersecurity Expert Ritesh Kotak. According to this year’s first quarter data from the Canada’s Independent Financial Ombudsman “fraud complaints more than doubled quarter over quarter and rose by 13% year over year.” Canada’s Department of Finance tells CHCH News that financial consumer agents “expects financial institutions to investigate whether the circumstances that led to an unauthorized transaction were beyond the cardholder’s control and to take into account all relevant factors before making a finding of liability against a consumer.” “Never mind that they were duped, never mind that it was a sophisticated scam, the banks often contend that it was the victims who willingly hand that information over, therefore, it’s all on them, not on the banks,” Tech Analyst Carmi Levy says. Tech experts say in some cases, refunds are granted but more can be done to help clients. They say it will take more investment from banks to detect fraud and a change in government legislation to hold financial institutions more accountable.