The Lake Cowichan RCMP detachment has recently received various complaints regarding fraud and computer hackers.
The complaints came Nov. 12 and 18, one about a phone call and the other about a suspicious e-mail.
“On Nov. 12, 2013, a complainant from Youbou contacted the Lake Cowichan Detachment to report that a male caller with a thick accent called his residence informing the complainant that he had a serious virus on his home computer,” Sgt. Wes Olsen stated in a press release to the Gazette.
The caller in question asked for specific details of the computer in order to gain access to it from his mysterious base and told the complainant he’d be able to fix the problem.
“The complainant was suspicious of the caller and his motives so pretended to follow along while trying to obtain information on who the caller was and what company they worked for,” said Olsen. “The caller would only provide his first name and would not reveal which company they worked for. The caller did provide a phone number of 614-388-9092, which comes up as a blocked number out of Columbus, Ohio, USA.”
Once the caller had seized upon the complainant’s suspicions, the call was terminated. RCMP officers believe the caller was trying to attain credit card and personal information.
Lightning went on to strike twice — and in Youbou once again.
“On Nov. 18, 2013, another complainant from Youbou contacted the Lake Cowichan RCMP to report that she had received a suspicious e-mail on her Shaw account from a place called DocuCentre — IV. The e-mail contained a PDF file
that contained personal information belonging to the complainant. The complainant contacted Shaw and was told that this may be Malware and an attempted fraud or identity theft,” said Olsen.
“Police would also like to remind the public that you should always be guarded about releasing any personal or credit card information over the phone, especially to somebody that calls you out of the blue. There are many types of different scams and frauds operating, with scammers finding new and innovative ways to try and separate you from your hard-earned money.”
Olsen and company reckon “if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is and you should never have to spend money to win money, as many of these scams suggest.”
Lake Cowichan RCMP advise anyone who is a victim of similar fraud attempts to contact The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501, e-mail info@antifraudcentre.ca or check out the fraud centre’s website.
The two complainants were advised similarly.