Stage 07 · After
What happens after the money is gone, and who calls next
Start here Call your bank, the police and the Anti-Fraud Centre today
The scammers go quiet. Nobody explains, nobody is caught, and nothing arrives in the post. We think the quiet afterwards is the part of the scam that works best. Telling one person and making three calls still changes what happens next.
What the scammers are doing
Leaving, and, we think, passing your name on.
The Anti-Fraud Centre warns that people who have lost money are approached again about it.
Why a scam works here
Most frauds are never reported.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimates that only 5 to 10 of every hundred frauds in Canada are reported.
What stops a scam here
Saying it once, to anybody.
Telling one person gets the calls to your bank and the police made sooner, while the bank can still try to get it back.
What tends to follow
In the cases we have read, these usually start within weeks of the loss, sometimes within days.
- The calls stop. No explanation and no last message. For many people this is when they understand what happened.
- Or the calls do not stop. Some scammers stay in touch, friendly and asking for nothing. Every week of that is a week the bank is not called.
- A message about the money. From somebody who says they can get it back.
- A law firm nobody has heard of, with an action you can join, for a share of the costs, paid now.
- An official-sounding office. A fund, task force, bureau or commission, with a case number already in your name.
- A tracing service for anything that went in crypto. A fee first, then a report that looks real.
- A stranger who lost money too, in a group or forum, who offers the name of somebody who helped them.
- The same scammers under a new name. A new story, and they already know what worked.
We think the names of people who paid are passed on.
Not just a telephone number: a name, an amount and the method that worked. That would explain why the next approach often fits better than the first.
What an unreported loss lets them do
Going quiet was the scammers’ choice, like every other step. In our reading, scammers have learned that people who say nothing are worth more to them.
Silence gives them three things:
- No report, so no pattern anybody can see.
- No warning to the next person, often somebody in the same building or congregation.
- A name worth approaching again, because a person who has told nobody has also been advised by nobody.
Most frauds are never reported, so most people this has happened to have not reported it. Feeling like the only one comes from that, not from anything about you.
Three phone calls today, from the list under Start here, still count.
You do not have to feel differently first, and calls made badly count too.
What to do, in the order we would start
Do the first two actions today, even though nothing at this stage seems to need it.
Start here
None of these needs you to feel ready or to decide anything about the past.
Call your bank, the police and the Anti-Fraud Centre today
What to do. Three calls, in the order the Anti-Fraud Centre gives:
- Your bank’s fraud line, for the account the money left from.
- Local police, for a file number.
- The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
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.
A date and an amount is enough to start. You do not need the full story, a total, or how it happened.
Why it works. A bank can only try to pull the money back while it is still in the account it was sent to, so speed is the only thing that helps.
What it does not do. Usually bring the money back.
What the calls do instead. Stop what has not gone yet, and put the scam on record.
Anyone who contacts you about the loss is running the second scam
What to do. Treat anyone who contacts you about money you lost as part of the same scam, including:
- A law firm
- An office with a case number
- A tracing service
- Somebody who says the same thing happened to them
What the police and the Anti-Fraud Centre say. Neither will ever ask you to transfer money or pay anything.
Why it works. You do not have to judge whether the offer is real. Ask only: did this come to me, or did I go to them?
What it does not do. Mean there is nothing to be done. Start with a number you looked up yourself, on a card, a statement or a government website, never one from a message.
Hand the list of calls to the person you tell
What to do. Say what happened once, to one person, and hand them the list of calls. Telling and calling do not have to be done by the same person, or on the same day.
Who to tell. A relative, a friend, a doctor or a bank manager. Somebody outside the family is sometimes easier.
Why it works. The hard part is the first sentence. Everything after it is clerical work that somebody else can do.
What it does not do. Remove you from it entirely. A bank will not discuss an account with a family member without your authorization, so you will be on some of these calls. You can be there as the person being helped, not the one explaining yourself.
Change the email and phone passwords first, then the bank’s
What it does. Stops the scammers using what they still have:
- Software installed for screen-sharing, still running.
- Access to the email account, and any setting that may be quietly sending copies of your email to them.
- Saved cards, pre-authorized payments, account numbers, photographs of identification.
Email and telephone first. We put these first because whoever controls your email or phone can reset every other password.
Each one new. A password you have not used anywhere else, and two-step verification turned on, so signing in also needs a code sent to you.
What it does not do. Cover everything. The full order, with what to say to each place, is in Change the email and phone passwords first, then the bank’s.
Worth doing
The week after, not the day after.
Write the timeline down while it is fresh
What it does. Dates, amounts, how each payment was sent, what names were used, and screenshots of anything still on the phone. Every institution involved asks for this, separately.
What it does not do. Need to be complete. An incomplete list written this week is more use than none.
Often suggested, does less than you would think
Deleting the messages and assuming it cannot happen twice both cost you something.
Blocking the number, or changing it
Worth doing, and rarely enough on its own. We have seen the next approach come from a different number or channel.
Deleting the messages
The urge to delete is strongest on the first evening, and deleting destroys the only record that exists. Everything a bank, an insurer or the police can do afterwards is built from those messages. Put them in a folder instead.
“He would never fall for it again”
The next approach is built from what the first one learned about him.
Where to call, on a number you look up yourself
Anyone offering to return lost money is not one of these.
- Your bank’s fraud line. On the back of the card and on your statement. Recalls, holds, disputes, and cancelling payments not yet made.
- Local police. The file number comes from here, and the steps afterwards ask for it. If any of it happened in person, somebody at the door, a courier, cash handed to somebody, that report also carries a description and an address.
- The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Takes the report. It does not recover money.
- Equifax and TransUnion, the two companies that keep your credit file. Call Equifax on 1-800-465-7166 and TransUnion on 1-800-663-9980. A note on that record, called a fraud alert, is worth placing if identification or a Social Insurance Number (SIN) was stolen or shared. It asks lenders to check who they are talking to. With Equifax’s Identity Alert, a lender in Manitoba or Ontario must check it is you. With its other alert, or in any other province, a lender is asked to check but does not have to.
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.
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.
Phone numbers, with French service, are on Who to call.