The Ontario Provincial Police are reporting an increase in “Bank Investigator” scam attempts, where the scam artist claims to be an investigator from their financial institution, local law enforcement or an online merchant.
Fraudsters may ask the for the victim’s assistance in an ongoing “investigation” against criminals who compromised the victim’s accounts. They ask the victim to deposit or send funds overseas. It is not until transfers are completed that the victim realizes their accounts had not been compromised.
In some cases, suspects are able to provide some of the victim’s personal information which might include name, date of birth, phone number, address and debit card number to make the call seem legitimate.
Additionally, suspects are spoofing financial institution phone numbers or are providing fraudulent call-back phone numbers which impersonate the financial institution.
The OPP are reminding people that financial institutions or online merchants will never ask you to transfer funds to an external account.
In order to avoid these sorts of scams, the OPP advise that if you get a call claiming to be from your financial institution, advise the caller that you will call them back. End the call and dial the number on the back of your bank or credit card from a different phone if possible or wait 10 minutes before making the outgoing call.