Ottawa man intercepts bitcoin scam targeting elderly woman

An Ottawa man found himself intercepting an investment scam Friday afternoon.

Tom St. Denis was on his lunch break at the Kanata Indian Supermarket when he happened to pass by an elderly woman being guided over the phone to use the store’s bitcoin ATM.

He got in his car to leave, but a bad feeling drove him back inside. When he asked the woman why she was using the machine, his bad feeling was justified.

“She was telling us about some form of investment and that she was helping with a fraud case. If she transferred the money, she would get paid $300 to keep for her troubles,” St. Denis recalled Sunday.

“Immediately, the red flags went up – this is clearly a scam.”

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, was initially fooled by a spoofed caller ID – a 902 area code and a person on the other end who claimed to be a Scotiabank representative.

They had her install malicious software on her computer and her banking credentials were soon compromised. Not long after, a deposit of $1,200 appeared in her savings account. She was told to buy $1,000 in gift cards and that she could keep the remaining $200 for her troubles.

In reality, the deposit was her own credit being manipulated by the scammer.

When St. Denis approached her Friday, the woman was ready to send $4,000 of her own money.

“She simply wasn't aware that you could fake [caller ID] and that installing random software from a stranger is a huge security risk,” he said. “$4,000 is a lot of money, and for a pensioner that could have been crippling.”

St. Denis convinced her to hang up on the fraudster after explaining the mechanics of the scam. The two then headed to a nearby Scotiabank location to lock down her accounts and begin a fraud investigation with the bank.

The Ottawa Police Service says it receives 30 to 40 fraud reports a day – many being variations of the investment scam St. Denis intercepted.

“We are too trusting of a community that we believe everything,” said Detective Shaun Wahbeh. “When someone calls us and tells us something, we believe it, so we're a prime target for overseas fraudsters.”

Wahbeh says once money is sent to fraudsters, it is almost impossible to recover.

“The reality is the banks are not going to reimburse you because you've done this willingly,” Wahbeh said.

He reminds residents to stay vigilant amid a rise in investment and crypto scams.

“Once you hear the word crypto or bitcoin or even gift cards, it's a red flag,” he warned. “No legitimate business deals with those kind of financial currencies.”

A software engineer by trade, St. Denis says there are ways for tech savvy people to help out their less adept family members.

“A prime example would be to set them up as a non-administrator on their own computer so they can't change settings,” he explained. “Another way, especially with Windows, is that it has what they call Microsoft Family - so you can create a child account for elderly or highly-gullible people from that.”

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has received more than 62,000 reports of fraud nationwide since the start of the year. More than $554 million have been lost to scams in 2024.