Oak Bay police are investigating after a resident lost $14,700 in a phone fraud.
The resident, who reported the fraud to police last week, had been drawn into an elaborate scam that started with a phone call purporting to be from someone at Visa.
The victim was told there were unauthorized charges on their credit card, and was asked to confirm the card’s last four numbers.
They were then transferred to the so-called “fraud department.” At that point, the victim was told “a very practiced and believable story” and agreed to help with a “fraud investigation,” police said.
The caller convinced the victim to withdraw $5,000 from their bank and deposit it in a bitcoin machine, then to withdraw a further $7,000 from another bank location and deposit it in a second bitcoin machine.
The next day, the victim was directed to withdraw $5,000 once again and deposit it in still another bitcoin machine, but they encountered difficulties making the full deposit after $2,700 of the $5,000 had been deposited.
When they returned to the bank to take out another $5,000, a teller grew concerned about all of the recent bank activity and told the victim they were likely being scammed.
Police said that financial institutions and companies like Visa do not ask customers to make payments with bitcoin or gift cards, and members of the public would not be asked to help with a fraud investigation.
People should hang up on such calls, police said.
