Answering the phone may never been the same for Ethel Jones again.
The call came in the middle of a quiet Tuesday afternoon, early in the summer of 2014. Mrs. Jones was greeted by a fast-speaking man. He said he was a representative from her bank, warning her about issues with some statements, and asking for information so that he could fix it. She brought over her husband Robert Jones, and together they calmly told the man their account number, their passwords, everything.
Mrs. Jones was 85, and in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.
The man on the phone was a criminal.
“They thought, ‘Of Course!’ They trusted the man, they’re not used to technology and believed he was just trying to help,” said Kristie Jones, Mrs. Jones’ granddaughter, who told me this story due to her grandmother’s now severe stage of memory loss.
Five minutes after being scammed, Susan Coichrnoyer, Mrs. Jones’ daughter, called in to do a random check-in and got the details of the “very helpful man from the bank.”
There were zero dollars in their account. If Coichrnoyer had not contacted the bank immediately, and stopped the transfer mid transaction, “all of their money, their pension, everything would’ve been gone,” said Jones. “All in the span of 15 minutes.”
Identity fraud is not something new. But it is scams like these that are causing the national average to increase steadily over the past 3 years.
In fact, if you’re a resident of Toronto, your chances of being scammed have nearly doubled, going from a rate of 15.9 to 28.5 incidents per 100,000 people in just one year, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data. It’s the city with the third highest identity fraud rate in all of Ontario.
Unfortunately, Canada’s seniors are easy prey for the scammers, said Daniel Williams, Fraud Specialist from the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre (CAFC).
“Some types of fraud, like prize scams, historically its been 80 per cent of victims have been 60 plus,” said Williams. According to CAFC’s 2014 annual report, telephone/facsimile scams are the most probable ways criminals will try to steal information, with just over 22 thousand complaints and 4,557 victims this past year.
Williams says the only way to combat identity fraud and to see the national rate go down is to report.
“Let’s say we get the names (from law enforcement) of anywhere form 100 to 300 Canadians who have sent money directly to scammers with a suspect bank account. We go through our database and we’re lucky to see if its six, maybe seven people have reported. And these people are losing tens of thousands of dollars,” he said.
Williams says there are a multitude of reasons why people don’t report, but the very worst is the people who don’t realize they’ve been scammed.
“Prize scams geared towards victims in their late 60s, 70s, 80s, people who may be in various stages of memory loss, so the awareness to report isn’t there the way that it would be,” said Williams.
But there’s also the stigma of reporting. “Many people who realize that they’ve been scammed feel very embarrassed about it, they blame themselves,” he added.
Robert Jones, now 88, is an ex-military member. “He’s always been very sharp, always on point,” said Jones. “He was shocked. He was so disappointed in himself, he couldn’t believe he was so easily fooled,” she said.
Although, seniors aren’t the only ones that should be concerned.
“How many people put information on Facebook that ten years ago would have been considered personal and private … Now less and less is date of birth considered something of an identifier because its just so readily available,” said Williams.
According to CAFC’s 2014 report, 66% of the year’s total reported dollar loss was stolen via the Internet or email. “The Internet is the cheapest way for criminals to get a hold of people, and they love it,” said Williams.
From Kijiji ads selling couches to seniors on dating websites looking for new romance, “All of these things these people are doing online, the scammers are there circling like vultures. And there are many, many vultures,” said Williams.
“Google it!” he added. ““Scammers are evil, they’re nasty, they’re very successful, but they’re also very lazy. You receive an email telling you you’re getting an inheritance? Search the claim number. I guarantee once five people have been exposed to it, one of them has blogged about it.”