Fraudsters withdrew $400,000 from retiree’s bank account

“I would really think that having it in the bank would be safe, but I don’t think it is anymore,” said a Vancouver retiree after her savings were withdrawn from her bank account.

A Vancouver retiree is speaking out after scammers drained $400,000 from her account in less than three days – leaving her reeling, unsure of what to do next.

“It made me sick, I mean, absolutely. There are no words to describe it, that’s almost half a million dollars,” she told The Leader Spirit.

The Leader Spirit is protecting the identity of the victim to allow her to tell her story without fear of retribution.

She says the saga started with a call appearing to be from her bank’s fraud department asking whether she had made a recent transaction.

“Then the next day, they phoned again, and said, ‘We found some other fraudulent charges in your chequing account,’” she recalled.

“The person was starting to go through them all, and I thought, ‘This is just too weird, ’ so I went to the bank in person, and said, ‘Something is going on here,’ but the bank teller said, ‘No.’”

It was a phishing scam.

Bad actors use technology to manipulate how their phone number appears and assume the identity of a trusted person to draw out sensitive information from prospective victims.

Often, it is the final step of a longer data-gathering campaign.

In similar case, woman lost $83,000 to scammers

This victim came forward after The Leader Spirit shared a near-identical story a few days ago, in which a different B.C. woman had $83,000 stolen from her TD account by scammers using the same method.

“Have you ever sent large deposits like that around before?”

“Never, never ever,” the victim explained.

“That’s what bugs me the most. You think this is unusual? Should they have picked it up? Oh, no doubt.”

In a statement, TD Bank said it can’t speak to this specific case due to client privacy, but did confirm they were investigating it, adding that your bank will never call to ask for a one-time security code that’s been sent to your phone or email.

But what concerns this victim is that she says she didn’t provide the scammers with anything they didn’t already have.

“They knew my name, my address, my phone number, my birthdate; they knew everything. In fact, I didn’t give them any information,” the victim said.

Scams like this are becoming more frequent – and harder to stop, says Theresia Joseph, a cyber security expert.

“Does it surprise me? Unfortunately, not,” she told The Leader Spirit.

“There is a lot of information about individuals on the dark web already. Whenever an account gets breached, it collects in another database, and that’s how hackers, or people who don’t want your best, get more information, and they’re just going to put that together and unfortunately scam you.”

The victim says she has had $50,000 returned to her by TD in the month since she was defrauded, and she hopes they’ll be able to reverse the rest of the transactions, but she hasn’t received any guarantees.

“They really got me this time, I’ll tell you, it’s been a nightmare.”

AI makes scams more dangerous

According to Statistics Canada, Canadians lost over $638 million to fraud in 2024 alone.

And the number of frauds and scams is rising — just between 2022 and 2023, the number rose by 12 per cent.

Law enforcements, however, only investigate 5 to 10 per cent of the cases as not more are being reported.

In a separate report by BMO, experts recommend being skeptical of any kind of urgency.

“If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is,” said Larry Zelvin, Head of Security Advisory at BMO.

“Slow down, verify the source, and don’t let urgency override caution.”

In the separate report, experts also warn that scams are becoming more creative and harder to detect, especially in times of AI.

“AI has made scams more convincing and harder to detect,” Zelvin explained.

“Fraudsters can now mimic trusted brands and voices with alarming accuracy. Consumers need to be more skeptical than ever.”

With files from Jan Schuermann.