WEST KELOWNA – The scammer didn’t call her, she called him, albeit by accident. A West Kelowna woman had no idea what she was in for when she was told by the Bank of Montreal (BMO) to call the number on the back of her MasterCard for customer service. She visited a branch Monday, when they told her to call the customer service line. It turns out she misread the digits and dialed the wrong number. The person on the other end fraudulently claimed to be with BMO and Cheryl King ended up compromising her personal information.
“I think anybody can make the mistake of calling 1-888 instead of 1-866,” says King.
However, instead of indicating she had the wrong number, the person on the other line claimed to be with BMO and proceeded to ask for her credit card number.
“I said if you’re card services at Bank of Montreal, why don’t you have my credit card number? And they said ‘well, our system is down right now.’”
Believing she had dialed the number on the back of her credit card, King went ahead and gave her personal information including her full name, credit card details and home address. King says, just after giving her information, the call ended. At that point, she realized she may have compromised her information. She was still parked outside a BMO branch and decided to go inside to ask for help.
“We cut up my card and cancelled it and he did check and we were lucky enough to catch it before any charges had gone through.”
King says she is still worried that someone may commit identity fraud with the information she gave. King says a simple mistake in dialing a number can happen to anyone so she wanted to go public with her story. For fraud prevention tips, click here to visit the Canadian Bankers Association website.
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