Stage 05 · It moves
How the money leaves, and the last person who can stop it
Start here Answer the teller honestly, including the part you were told to leave out
By now, sending the money feels like following instructions, not deciding. The person at the counter is often the last one who can stop it.
What the scammers are doing
Choosing a route with no way back.
Cash at the counter, an envelope handed to a courier, gift cards read out over the phone, a wire, cryptocurrency. Each is picked because the money is hard or impossible to pull back.
Why a scam works here
The deciding already happened.
Someone following instructions asks whether they are doing it correctly, never whether they should be.
What stops a scam here
A person in the room.
In the scams we have seen, most of this money leaves in person. An e‑Transfer has no witness. Nine thousand dollars at a counter has several, and they are allowed to ask.
Each route out, and who is standing there
We have listed these by who is standing nearby when the money goes:
- Cash, from the counter. Sometimes several branches in a day, sometimes several days running, because a single large withdrawal attracts a question and four smaller ones may not.
- Cash, to a courier at the door. An envelope handed over at home to somebody with a name, an appointment and a reason to be there.
- A gift card, bought in person. The numbers are read out over the phone before you leave the shop, so the call is still going while you pay.
- A wire, or a bank draft. Arranged at the counter, sometimes by a teller who has known the customer for fifteen years. A draft looks like a cheque and behaves like cash.
- An e‑Transfer, sent by email or text through online banking. The only one on this list with no witness at all.
- Cryptocurrency. At a machine or on a trading site. Money that exists only as an entry in a shared online record. Almost always with somebody on the phone talking you through the screens.
The same routes, by whether the money can be pulled back:
- An e‑Transfer that is not yet deposited. The sender can cancel it.
- A wire, or a bank draft. Call your own bank as soon as you suspect a scam and ask whether it can still be stopped. A draft still in your hands can go back to the branch that issued it.
- Cash, gift cards and cryptocurrency. Once handed over or sent, almost none of it can be pulled back.
Each route in detail: Why some money can be pulled back, and some cannot.
The account the money comes out of matters as much as the amount:
- A retirement savings account. A registered retirement savings plan (RRSP), or the registered retirement income fund (RRIF) it usually becomes after retirement. Money taken out counts as income for that year. Tax is owed on money that is already gone, so the loss ends up larger than the theft.
- A line of credit drawn against a house that was paid off. It turns a loss into a debt secured on the home.
- A joint account. It may belong to somebody who has not yet been told the money is gone.
Time between the first contact and the money leaving
In the cases we have read, these scams sort by how long they take. The time tells you which defence can still work.
- Minutes to an hour. A grandchild in trouble. Someone from your bank’s security team. A police officer. A caller who says your computer has been broken into. Nobody is talked out of these. Only a rule that existed before the phone rang reaches them.
- Days. A prize you have won. A repair man at the door. A charity you have not heard of. A rule reaches these, and so does telling one other person.
- Weeks to months. An investment that is doing well. A company somebody introduced you to. A conversation works here. Checking does not, because everything you would check was built to pass.
- Months to years. Someone you have come to care about. Nothing reaches this one except somebody you were already close to.
- Afterwards. Somebody who contacts you about the money you have already lost. It arrives from a list, and it goes after the money that is left.
Did they take it, or did you send it?
Your bank treats money taken from you differently from money you sent yourself. A family that cannot say which one happened will get the wrong answer from the first person they speak to.
Warnings about wires, gift cards and cryptocurrency come too late here.
By the time somebody is at the machine, they have been given a reason.
The rule has to be agreed before anybody gives one.
Why a delay works here and an argument does not
The decision was made when the first small request was agreed to. What is happening now is errands and paperwork:
- A lineup
- A form
- A code
- A drive to a second branch
Nobody is weighing anything now, so there is nothing to argue against. What interrupts the scam here is a delay:
- A limit
- A hold
- A callback
- A stranger asking a question
a hold the bank stops one payment while somebody asks a question
A bank or an investment firm can pause a single withdrawal, transfer or trade rather than let it go through. The institution places it, not you, and it is temporary. It does not close the account or touch the rest of the money.
We think the money mostly goes in person because the money is in savings, not in a chequing account.
Who can still stop it. A teller, a clerk or a branch manager, standing there and allowed to ask.
People are coached on what to say at the counter.
Home repairs. A car. Helping a relative. American bank filings describe customers at the counter who struggled to give a consistent reason, and who may have been on the phone with somebody directing them.
Sometimes the script comes with the line that the bank itself is part of the problem, which turns the one person who could help into somebody to get past.
What to do, in the order we would start
Everything here works by adding a person or adding time, and none of it needs anybody to work out what is true.
Start here
The first takes ten seconds at the counter.
Answer the teller honestly, including the part you were told to leave out
What to do. If a teller, a branch manager, or someone from the bank on the telephone asks what a withdrawal or a transfer is for, give the real reason, all of it.
If you were told what to say. Tell the teller that, too: “I was told to say it was for home repairs.”
Why it works. Nobody legitimate has ever needed you to lie to your bank. Not any of these:
- The police
- The tax office
- A lawyer
- An investment firm
- A relative
The person who set up everything else is not in the room, so they cannot prepare for this check.
What it does not do. Guarantee that anything stops. The staff member may not act, and the money may go anyway.
Make large amounts move slowly, before any of this starts
What to do. Ask your bank to lower the daily transfer limits, and ask what else they will put on the account:
- A hold on anything over a figure you choose.
- A callback to a number they already hold.
- A note that wires and drafts need a conversation first.
On investment accounts. Name a trusted contact person. It grants no authority over anything, and it gives the firm somebody to telephone when a transaction worries them.
Why it works. A delay gives someone at the bank or firm time to ask a question.
What it does not do. Reach cash. Once cash is out of the branch, no limit, hold or contact follows them anywhere.
Above an amount you pick, money moves in person
What to do. Decide a figure now, while nothing is happening. Above that figure, money only moves at a counter, never by app, phone or e‑Transfer. Write the figure down and tell one person what it is.
Why it works. A counter has several people, and asking is part of their job. A screen never asks a question.
What it does not do. Feel convenient. The rule is a nuisance on the many occasions when nothing is wrong, and that cost is real.
Worth doing
Useful only before the next trip to the bank, or before the e‑Transfer is deposited.
Say what happened out loud before the second trip
What it does. Many of the scams we have seen run over more than one visit. The gap between trips is the last chance to stop and think, and it is long enough for one telephone call.
What it does not do. Get back the money from the first trip. It is aimed at the ones that follow.
Cancel an e‑Transfer that is not yet deposited
What it does. If you sent an e‑Transfer that is not yet deposited, you can cancel it from your transaction history.
What it does not do. Work when the other person has autodeposit switched on. The money arrives at once and there is nothing to cancel. Call the bank anyway.
autodeposit an e‑transfer setting that puts the money straight in, with nothing to accept
Without it a transfer waits to be picked up, and that wait is the only window in which the sending bank has something to pull back. Switched on at the receiving end, there is no wait and no window. It is the recipient who turns it on, not the sender.
Often suggested, does less than you would think
All three arrive after the useful moment has passed.
“Never pay by gift card, wire or crypto”
The right rule, but it only works if agreed before the first request.
Knowing how the money moves
Knowing that a bank draft is as good as cash does not help once you have been told a bank draft is required. At this stage the route is handed to you, not chosen.
Waiting until you are certain before telling the bank
Call your bank while you are still unsure. The bank’s chance to stop a payment does not wait for you to be certain. A call to your own bank about your own account is free and commits you to nothing.
What each of these organizations can actually do
Call all three. None of them does the others’ job.
- The bank or credit union the money left from. The only one of the three that can still act on the payment. They can attempt a recall, freeze the account, and stop what has not gone yet.
- Local police. They give you a file number, which later steps ask for. If any of it happened in person, a courier at the door or cash handed over, say so: a description and an address make it a different kind of report.
- The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. They do not recover money. They take the report that everything afterwards refers back to.
a recall the sending bank trying to pull a payment back before it is collected
You ask your own institution to attempt it; you cannot do it yourself. Whether it works depends on how the money went and whether it has already been collected. An Interac e-Transfer not yet deposited is not recalled but cancelled, which the sender can do directly.
the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre where scams get reported nationally, which is not the same as being investigated
It gathers reports from across the country so that patterns can be seen. Your own case belongs to the local police force, and the Centre does not work it. It cannot move money either.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre gives the order to call these three in: your bank, then the police, then the Centre. The numbers are in I think I have been scammed.