A Halifax woman is sharing her experience as a victim of fraud in the hope it helps prevent others from falling prey to scammers.
Candida Hadley met a friend for tea at a café in north-end Halifax last week. When she stood to leave after chatting for a couple of hours, she noticed her purse felt lighter than it should have.
She looked inside and saw that her wallet was gone. After searching everywhere and asking café staff if someone had turned it in, she realized it had been stolen.
But the theft of her wallet was only the beginning.
As she was about to leave the café to freeze her cards, she got a call that her phone identified as coming from Royal Bank.
The caller said there had been suspicious activity on her card and asked several verification questions, even leaving her on the line for a couple of minutes as they purportedly looked things up on their end — as banks often do.
“I feel like it was just exactly the kind of thing you would expect when you get a call, right?” said Hadley. “You know, like confirming who you are, confirming your cards, you know, sympathy for the fact that the wallet was stolen.”
Over the course of the conversation, Hadley revealed her PIN to the caller, not realizing it was not a bank representative, but rather the wallet thief.
“And I know — you should never answer that. You should never give your PIN number to anybody. I know that. But of course in that moment, I was stressed out and anxious,” Hadley said.
Shortly after the call, Hadley began to feel uneasy about it, suspecting it was part of a scam. She cancelled her cards but unfortunately it was too late.
During the 30 minutes in which the fraudsters had access, they made a $700 purchase at the Shoppers Drug Mart on Joseph Howe Drive and withdrew $500 in cash.
Hadley said the thieves also tried to make a $3,000 purchase at Best Buy but were unsuccessful.
She believes another phone call, which came just eight minutes after she arrived at the café — likely moments after her wallet was stolen — was somehow also part of the scam.
The automated call, which did not have a displayed caller ID, said someone was trying to buy a MacBook Pro from the Apple store at the Halifax Shopping Centre, and that she should press a certain number on the keypad to confirm or deny the purchase.
She said there wouldn’t have been time for someone to get to the mall from the café in just eight minutes to attempt such a purchase. When she called the number back later, after realizing she had been defrauded, it was not in service.
Hadley said one element of the scam still puzzles her. She doesn’t know how the thieves got her cellphone number, as it was not written down anywhere inside her wallet, is unlisted and is not, to her knowledge, available online.
She said looking back, she remembers someone in the café behaving in a slightly odd manner in the lineup near the cash register shortly after she arrived.
“There was some suspicious activity around me, but of course at the time, I didn’t think anything of it. Just somebody moving around the café and in ways that in retrospect seemed suspicious.”
Hadley said although she’s careful, and would never fall for an email scam, she was caught off guard by the phone call, which was part of a “very sophisticated” operation.
“It never occurred to me that the call was a scam because the theft was in person and they seemed like distinct things. And in this instance, they certainly were not.”
She cautions people to never provide a PIN to anyone, and to be aware of the fact that a caller ID can be faked.
Hadley said because she gave her PIN to the caller, her bank will not provide a refund.
Halifax Regional Police confirmed they received a report about the incident on Aug. 13 and the investigation is ongoing.
Police spokesperson Marla MacInnis said these types of scams are common.
“Scammers can be very convincing and persuasive, so it’s important to protect your personal information,” she said in an emailed statement.
“When it comes to phone calls, take a moment to pause and consider who is contacting you and why. Do not share personal details by phone, email, or in person unless you’re certain of the individual’s identity and the legitimacy of the organization they represent,” MacInnis said.
In April, the CBC reported on a very similar case involving a Bedford woman who was defrauded of more than $11,000 after her wallet was stolen.
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