Fraud Files - Text Transcript

Segment 1

Voice Over
This man was told he was the winner of a half million dollar grand prize - but he would first need to pay taxes on the prize:

"They said that I owed them 2300 dollars. This was for being a couple of days late on the interest."

Kathleen was told that if she bought a set of commemorative coins, she would automatically win a very important US Bond.

Kathleen clip
"I'm studying law, and I fell. I fell into this scams."

Steve Oberding:
"These people are the worst thieves you can find. They have no feelings. They don't care if they take your last cent out of your pocket."

Segment 2

Cut to Cathy at Phonebusters

Cathy:
Now William, anybody that calls you, do not send them a dime. Do not believe them. These people are professional liars.

"Hang up on them. Do not believe them."

Donna:
If you had really won something, Teresa, you never have to send money in order to get it.

Segment 3

Host:
One of the names the scammers had on their list was that of Kathleen Torres.

One day a man called Kathleen and told her she was the winner of 2 out of 3 prizes.

One of these was an $8000 US bond.

Kathleen
I don't really believe in these things but the way they talked to me the way they brought out what I was supposed to be winning it just really got to me.

Voice Over
Of course, there was a catch. Before Kathleen could receive these prizes she would need to purchase 2 sets of commemorative coins. Eventually these would cost her over $5000.

Cut to Kathleen showing money order receipts

Kathleen:
These are the copies of the cheques, the money orders I have sent them. So you can see one is $3745 made payable to Canadian Collectables, the other ones are around 800 and 800 dollars, which is 1600 dollars

Voice Over
On the promise that she'd be able to repay the $5000 right away, Kathleen used the last of her student loan money then went to a friend for the remaining amount.

Kathleen:
As you can see here, at the bottom it says they have a special promotion of an 8000 dollar US bond that I was going to get for my money. That I never received.

This is what Kathleen received for her money:

Kathleen clip
These are the five piece commemorative coin that I received. As you can see, there's this little piece here that it's supposed to be a Spanish fleet half real, supposed to be 1715. But its just a small piece, barely worth nothing payed 3745 for this collection.
The most expensive piece in this thing is the frame itself.

Segment 4

Det Steve Brown:
Now in total, Bill, can you estimate how much money you sent these people?

Bill:
About 40 000.

Bill:
I'll tell you why, this has been going on for a long time, and it's supposed to be for half a million bucks, which isn't chicken feed.

Voice Over
William's life savings are gone. But that doesn't stop the scammers:

Bill:
They said I owed him $2300 - this was for being a couple of days late on interest. And I said I don't have $2300. I just don't have it. And she said, after having a word with her boss, and she says how much can you get? And I says, I think maybe $1500. She says OK, would you pay the other $800 after you get the half million?

Segment 5

Host:
The fact thieves can secretly use your phone to steal from you is a troubling thought. No one is more troubled by this than the phone companies themselves. That's why they have Al Nittymaa hard at work. Al works for Stentor, an alliance of Canadian telecommunications companies. It's his job to fight phone fraud. One of largest phone frauds is shoulder surfing.

Al
People use their card and make long distance calls and somebody looks over their shoulder or quite often they use the camcorder to record the digits being put into the phone and the criminal later on uses the camcorder in slow motion replay and they decipher the number.

I'm going to show you how easy it is for somebody to look over your shoulder as they're making a phone call. What I'd like to do is have the camera move over my shoulder, maybe about 20 - 30 feet away exactly how somebody would be looking over if they want to steal my calling card number. Okay here we go.

Al dials -

Just like that they can be filming, getting that on tape and later on using it to be able to replay it in slow motion replay and use the calling card to steal long distance services from you.

Once you go to enter your calling card what you want to be able to do is put in the first digits of the calling card and then move your body over in this fashion.

Voice Over
Moving your body while you're dialling protects you from all angles.

Al
A lot of times people may think this is crazy to do this or an extraordinary measure but really there's a lot of people out there who want to steal your long distance card. By moving your body and shielding, people can't camcord and they can't look over your shoulder and steal the card to make long distance charges.

Voice Over
You can see how easy it is for scammers to get your calling card so just think how easily they can steal personal numbers of any sort, such as your debit card (PIN) number. You can imagine the damage that could be done if a criminal gets your card and your number.

Segment 6

Closing stand-up by Host of Scams show

As you've seen, it's easy to be conned by smooth talking criminals. But this doesn't mean that they can take over our lives. There's a simple easy way to turn these people away for good.

When they call and it sounds too good to be true, just hang up. If they call again, hang up again! And again. Not only is this your best defence, it's also a good way of helping put these scammers out of business so that others won't get hurt.

I'm Detective Phil Glavin

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