Scammers tend to give special attention to seniors. In one recent case reported by CTV Calgary, a 68-year-old widow from Ontario lost about $800,000, her life’s savings, in a romance scam and had to relocate to Calgary to be closer to her son.
[Read: Retirees Are Losing Their Life Savings to Romance Scams. Here’s What to Know.]
“It’s so important for everyone to inform their family members or loved ones on new scams coming out or what techniques fraudsters are using,” Mr. Horncastle told me. “It can go a long way.”
Before the pandemic, most fraud cases that came across his desk involved rudimentary manipulation, said Matthew McGuire, an anti-money-laundering expert and co-founder of The AML Shop, a consulting firm in Toronto. But today’s fraudsters, be they romance or cryptocurrency scammers, have become more sophisticated, he said. They even coach victims with what to say at the bank counter to reduce suspicion.
It happened to Li Zheng. A fraudster who claimed to be with the Chinese consulate contacted her, accused her of money laundering and sent a fake arrest warrant to her home to pressure her to wire $69,000 dollars through the Bank of China in Canada. Transactions over $10,000 send reports to the Canada’s financial intelligence agency, and an internal compliance officer at the bank asked Ms. Zheng about her relationship to the recipient. She didn’t respond but “looked worried and stressed,” according to a court decision.
The bank went ahead with the transfer. She only realized it was a ruse after reading news reports about this type of fraud.
Last month, the British Columbia Court of Appeal allowed Ms. Zheng’s lawsuit against the Bank of China (Canada) to proceed, ruling that, because the bank may have been aware of a fraud scheme but failed to warn its customer, the suit should go to trial.
A judgment against the bank “could really create a different story in Canada in terms of liabilities,” Mr. McGuire told me, adding that it could spell a shift from some of the reluctance “to dig deeper with questions at the counter.”
