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By Pete McIntyre-Vernon Matters

Phone Scams

Shuswap victims of text, phone scams: man claims he gave $50,000 to his ‘girlfriend’

Jan 26, 2024 | 7:59 AM

SALMON ARM, B.C. — People are having to be extra vigilant and careful when dealing with phone calls, texts and emails that may or may not be legitimate.

RCMP in Salmon Arm are reporting three recent fraud cases, each one involving a different type of cyber crime.

On Jan. 12, a woman told police she received a phone call from someone she believed was from Shaw Telecommunications.

They told the woman because she was a long-standing customer she qualified for a discount on her internet if she paid for a full year upfront. She provided her credit card information, including the CVV code.

She realized she had been scammed when her internet no longer worked. The woman contacted Shaw who denied contacting the woman.

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Police say further investigation showed the $995 payment was made to Shawca, not Shaw.ca and that the money was processed through PayPal to AirBnB.

Mounties say the woman had opened a complaint to her credit card company to try and get a refund.

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On Jan. 23, a man reported he received a text message from what he believed was his cell phone service provider, Rogers Wireless, with a 647 area code.

The text message was offering a promotion that required the complainant to prepay for a full year in the amount of $1,497.

The man paid the fee with his credit card, and later learned his Rogers account had been changed but it was unclear how. The man showed police a PayPal invoice he received.

RCMP advised the man to contact his credit card company to try and recoup the payment.

“While police recognize it is normal for internet service providers to offer discounts to customers, police encourage extra vigilance when receiving unrequested phone calls from persons with sales pitches,” Cst. Andrew Hodges, media relations officer for Salmon Arm RCMP said. “Police highly discourage providing personal information, or payment information over the phone to unknown callers. Additionally, it is not normal to pay upfront for internet or phone services.”

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The final recent case provided by RCMP involved a man who reported that he had sent $50,000 over the past year to someone posing as his girlfriend, that he believed to be living in Baltimore, Maryland.

The man was wanting to pursue charges after the person stopped communication. The complainant explained he had actually never seen this person, didn’t know what they looked like, and their only form of communication was over Skype.

Police say they had no way to identify a suspect, and the complainant had willingly sent money. making charges unlikely.