The Scam Susceptible Masses

When spam filters are working well, we don’t even see most attempted scams sent our way via e-mail. But sometimes they sneak through.

Last week, I received an e-mail from a good friend asking whether I would buy an Amazon card for him. He was having trouble with the Amazon’s site and couldn’t sort it out. This friend lives in the US and we have taken deliveries for each other and done all sorts of things. But this e-mail smelled funky from the start. Why did he choose a $400 gift card? That seemed like an arbitrary number. And why was this the ONLY thing he had to send to a friend who’s ill?

It wasn’t our friend. It was a scam. I replied with a couple of questions, just to be sure. Plus, I thought it could be fun!

I texted our friend and warned him that someone had hacked into his e-mail. Meanwhile, the scammer replied with the “sick friend’s” email address where I should send the gift card. They included a message to put on the card that was deeply religious and sickly sweet. I already knew it, but now it definitely wasn’t our friend. Sadly, some of his other friends weren’t as skeptical.

A Personal Policy

I never, ever click a link in an e-mail or text I’m not expecting. If I’m not sure whether it’s legitimate, I’ll search for the website independent of the link. Sometimes even that is not enough to be sure because some scammers create fake or spoof websites. Last week, a scammer contacted a pal using a real website, but misrepresenting what the company did. There are so many potholes.

In fact, there’s a way to “scrape” a hugely popular website for new sign-ups. The scammer then reaches out from an e-mail address that’s close to the domain name where the person signed up. It might have the word “the” or “a” or another common word in it. If the website is hotsoup.com the fake return address could be info@thehotsoup.com. The aim is to trick people who don’t look too closely into thinking they’re communicating with someone from the real website. It’s incredibly devious and very successful.

The problem for us is, scammers try everything, and we, as a society, don’t know enough about how stuff works.

So many people have been taken in by the Revenue Canada scam. RevCan will never text a link for payment and they don’t take payments in gift cards. But people get scared and stop thinking straight.

What If It’s Real

I got a phone call from Revenue Canada a couple of weeks ago. I missed the call but I knew it was real because it passed several tests.

1. GC CRA/ARC came up on my call display.
2. The woman on voicemail identified herself by her full name and title, and gave me her direct line.
3. The information she gave me was specific and detailed.
4. A copy of the notice was posted in my mail under my account at the CRA website.

My bank called me recently and asked me to visit a branch. I knew that was legit as well. There was no attempt to gather info.

By the way, the probe into my tax return was a big bag of nothing. (Whew!) And the bank just needed my verification on something.

Mom Would Hate This Story

My Mom was the most skeptical person I ever knew! She thought everything was a scam. I pity anyone who tried to contact her for a legitimate reason because she probably didn’t believe them.

Near the end of her life, she almost got something she didn’t want. I arrived at her condo to stay overnight ahead of an early appointment and she was in tears. We had recently discussed getting her some sort of alert system for when she was alone. A guy happened to call about the same thing and she agreed to an installation. After thinking about it, she realized it was problematic and didn’t know what to do about it.

I told her not to worry.

I went through her recent calls and found the number. The guy was driving from Toronto on his way to my mom’s when I reached him. I tried to confirm the details and he denied everything. Mom thought he said he was from Bell. He said no, my NAME is Bell. (He was clearly lying.) I told him the appointment was canceled and he started screaming, “I’M ALREADY ON MY WAY!” So I yelled back. It’s what I yelled that makes me laugh. “What do you want, a cookie?!” He said, “you’re very rude!” I said, “fine by me!” Then I hung up.

It took Mom a long while to stop beating herself up about it. I kept reminding her that these people are good at what they do. It wasn’t her fault. He may have even had a system to install but he lied to get her to agree. It was all okay now and no harm was done.

The Bottom Line

My mom was older and very ill but trust me, I see police reports and scams work on all ages. In fact, 35-44 is the age group getting scammed the most. But 18-24 year olds lose the most money per scam. They grew up with all of this technology where we didn’t. We are right to make sure that phone call from “your grandson” and all the other reach-outs are real. And now with AI voices, text and images involved? It’s a jungle out there.

I know a police officer who heads a fraud department and they cannot keep up with the caseload. They rarely recover any lost money but they can sometimes prosecute offenders, especially if they’re in Canada. I read a sad story recently about a woman who was scammed out of $25,000 after someone impersonated her bank. She wanted the bank to reimburse her which, sorry lady, is not going to happen. It’s not their fault that she didn’t know banks will never send you a link and make you sign in, out of the blue. The scammer took her password and cleaned her out. The onus is on us to educate ourselves and never stop learning.