A mother of two young children from Varennes whose bank account was drained by unauthorized Interac transfers to Europe has been informed by BMO that she will not receive a refund.
• Also read: Cheated and neglected by his bank: BMO denied him access to his own money for 37 days
• Also read: What to do if you are a victim of bank fraud?
“They told me they wouldn’t refund me because it came from my phone,” says Isabelle Corbet, whose husband is a police officer. Police concluded it was phishing. »
Like other cases uncovered by Le Journal in recent days, the hacker used Ms Corbet’s bank account to make transfers totaling $5,795 between September 6 and 8. He stole the victim’s money and used his credit card to get a cash advance to increase his haul.
“It might be a small sum for some, but for me it’s a big sum,” says the 37-year-old mother.
For two months, she multiplied calls and trips to the bank for help.
“It’s not at all comfortable with children aged two and four, I have to say. And there are days when I’ve been there more than once. Nobody seems to know the procedure. They send you to another service who says someone else is in charge and they say we’ll call you back but no one ever calls you back,” says Ms Corbet, feeling helpless about the situation.
Between the online services and the branch, the fraud department and the police, the lady did everything to prove that she herself was not the scammer. And when BMO was able to recover one of the transfers, it used it to pay the cash advance on the credit card, but left Ms Corbet with the loss of the $3,200 from her bank account.
After learning the story of Jonathan Labrie Dumoulin, a father whose BMO account was frozen for 37 days due to a series of unauthorized Interac transfers, Mrs Corbet’s husband contacted the bank on Wednesday morning to let him know that a media address would be made.
“They said they would try to open my file again because of the similarities,” Ms Corbet says.
Cases are settled, others appear
Note that BMO called Mr Labrie Dumoulin on Wednesday morning after our article was published and told him his case should be resolved within 48 hours. Another victim we spoke about last week, René Goyette, was compensated on Monday.
BMO says it takes all fraud complaints seriously, claiming that its analysis process “depends on getting all the relevant details and information from its customers,” who, as the bank reminds us in all of its communications, have a responsibility to keep their banking information protection.
However, the struggle of the victims is sometimes very long. Another BMO client, Véronique Desbiens, a 46-year-old nurse from Blainville, told us that since July 27 she has been fighting in hopes of getting a refund for $5,288 in transactions she made with her Credit card transacted on an Amazon account, which she didn’t create herself.
“I’ll work overtime on the sidelines for that!” At first they reassured me and said it would work, but it doesn’t! They say I gave the scammer access,” she laments.
She turns to the Ombudsman for Banking and Investments hoping for help.
The responsibility of the banks
Fraud prevention expert Simon Marchand regrets that phishing victims are treated as the only ones responsible.
“If the phone has been infected and the hackers are in control, it looks like a legitimate transaction to the bank, but there’s still a fraud victim behind it,” said he, who is vice president of product and risk at GeoComply and has 14 years Fraud prevention experience.
According to Mr. Marchand, Canadian banks have archaic methods of securing transactions, such as six-digit codes sent via SMS that can be easily intercepted.
“I think it’s a responsibility to stop doing what’s necessary in terms of safety,” Mr Marchand said. Banks make billions in profits, but what are they doing to actually protect their customers from themselves? »
He notes that facial, digital and voice recognition make it possible to verify who the human behind the transaction is and that this is the third layer of security that needs to be invested in now. In addition, he believes that banks should be required to disclose the number of fraud attacks they are targeted for.
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