Two recent fraud attempts nearly cost residents thousands of dollars.
A 6 a.m. call woke Cobourg resident Gillian Pocock on Nov. 22, she told the Northumberland News. Pocock said a man told her he was calling from Visa. He said there were unusual transactions on her card from Western Union and eBay and they were cancelling the card.
She was told to go get the card to see if it had been stolen. The man knew her address and gave her the first digits of her credit card number. She got concerned believing something wasn’t right and he wanted to get her credit card number. She told him she would call the 1-800 number on the back of her card and hung up. The credit card company confirmed her suspicions.
Pocock said she is concerned some of her older neighbours might get fooled by the scam.
An elderly Port Hope man was almost defrauded $2,000 in an online fraud on Nov. 27, said Port Hope Police Service. The man received an alert on his computer that indicated his computer needed to be cleaned. He went to the website and ended up in a string of communications with someone named Paul. The Port Hope man agreed to pay $150 to have the computer serviced online.
“Paul” later contacted the victim and told him a mistake had been made and that $2,000 was transferred into his account by mistake. The fraudster then sent the man an image of what appeared to be a picture of his account showing the $2,000 deposited. The Port Hope man was convinced to go to a MoneyGram office to have the $2,000 wired back to a location in India. At the local MoneyGram however, a quick thinking staff member inquired as to why he was sending this much money. The man revealed his reason and she told him it was most likely a fraud and to contact police.
No money was sent and the man’s financial institution was contacted to lock down the accounts.
Read the full story over at Northumberland News.
