Farro Mackenzie never imagined she’d fall victim to a phishing scam. The B.C. small business owner says it all started with a text from what she thought was her bank, asking her to verify a transaction.
Minutes after replying ‘no’ to the question, her phone rang. The caller ID showed up as TD Bank.
“It felt like they were reading through my statement, with me being like, oh, was this charge you? Was this charge you? And I’m like, no, no. And then yes, when it got to me,” she explained.
Days later, Mackenzie received a call suggesting another suspicious transaction. She thought that was the end of it until she went to the bank to make a transaction on her business account.
“The teller showed me my total that I had in the bank. And I was like, Oh, I think you’re missing a zero. And she’s like, oh, no.”
Turns out her account had been drained a total of $83,000 over two transactions. TD staff told her the previous calls and texts were from fraudsters who were using spoofing technology to appear as the bank on her phone.
“Unfortunately, it’s not shocking. It’s something that we see far too often. But it kind of shows how fraud is evolving,” says Jeff Horncastle with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
Horncastle says it’s hard to know exactly what happened in Mackenzie’s case, since she never gave any sensitive information via text or phone. But he says often, what fraudsters are looking for when it comes to bank accounts is a two-factor authentication code, and they may have some of your personal information to make it seem legitimate.
“For example, if a victim was a part of a breach in the past or their information was out there somehow, fraudsters got their hands on some of the information, and they may have been missing one piece to get into the bank account,” he explains.
CityNews reached out to TD Bank, and in a statement, a spokesperson said in part, “While we can’t speak to details of any particular case due to client privacy, I can confirm our team is investigating this matter and has reached out to Ms. Mackenzie.”
It’s unclear whether Mackenzie will see any of the money that went missing again. Experts say if you’re unsure about a call or text that could be from a known contact, find their official number and call them back, even from a different phone line.
