Quebecers have lost a good $3.5 million through text message fraud in the space of a little over five years, reveal data from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center (CAFC) obtained by The newspaper.
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“There is a lack of maturity in the banking system. We are still stuck with platforms that date from another era,” denounces in an interview with Newspaper Éric Parent, cybersecurity expert, CEO of Eva technologies.
“Why can financial institutions still add beneficiaries easily, when sites like Amazon are much more robust?” he wonders out loud.
Éric Parent, big boss of EVA Technologies.
Courtesy photo
According to him, Quebecers must raise the level of vigilance a notch because fraudsters have a nose when it comes to finding new reasons to extract money from them.
“Any reason is good to steal. Instead of sending a message blindly, we target current events,” observes Éric Parent.
Between January and March, more than $186,128.53 was stolen in Quebec in text message fraud, in just three months, which does not bode well this year, according to data from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center (CAFC ).
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Money stolen by text message in Quebec
2023: $1,680,240.29
2022: $1,205,143.63
2021: $399,475.67
2020: $67,590.02
2019: $83,158.04
2018: $91,854.77
(Source: Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre)
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Scammers everywhere
At Interac, we confirm that identity theft is more widespread than ever.
“Scammers are known to pose as friends, family and well-known businesses in order to steal money or personal information,” says spokesperson Fiona Bang.
“If someone receives an unexpected transfer, they should contact the sender to verify that it is legitimate,” she adds.
These last weeks, The newspaper was inundated with readers who said they had received texts of bills due from the A25 bridge. However, upon verification, the company simply does not use text messages as a means of payment.
Example of A25 text fraud.
Provided by a source
“These phishing attempts would have started in December 2023. We acted quickly to inform our customers and warn them via an alert message on our website,” indicates its spokesperson Sylvie Godin.
“It is only by pure coincidence that some of our customers are approached in this way. Consequently, it is impossible for us to assess the extent of this attempted fraud,” she concludes.
