HALDIMAND COUNTY – Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Haldimand County detachment is investigating a fraud that occurred on Thursday January 28, 2016.
A Haldimand County resident contacted Police to advise that she had been the victim of a fraud. The unknown(s) advised they were a bank employee investigating a fraud on the call recipient’s bank account. The caller directed them to a website where they were shown personal information, including bank account information and balances. The caller then directed the resident to attend specific locations and wire money transfers to a specific individual, in order to assist the bank in apprehending the fraudster in the act. As further requests for more overseas transactions occurred, the resident became suspicious, and contacted their bank and police — however, not before transferring an amount of money.
The OPP want to ensure that if anyone has received this type of phone call and has provided any money or personal or financial information to take proactive steps in order to prevent them from becoming targets of identity theft.
If you have provided your personal or financial information and suspect that it has been used and misappropriated to commit fraud or theft, take action immediately and keep a record of your conversations and correspondence. The following basic actions are appropriate in almost every case.
File a report with your local police. Start a log of dates, person(s) that you spoke with and exactly what they said. Contact the fraud departments of each of the two major credit bureaus, Equifax at (800) 465-7166 and Trans Union at (800) 663-998. Request that a “Fraud Alert” be placed in your files. At the same time order copies of your credit reports.
