SIM swap scam hits Ste Anne resident to tune of $16,300

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This article was published 01/01/2024 (443 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A SIM card scam has hit a Ste Anne resident to the tune of $16,300.

In September, Ken Levenec was on a camping trip with his wife, Colleen, when he noticed their phones were acting up by not receiving or placing calls or text messages. When the Levenecs got home they were notified by their bank that e-transfers totaling $8,800 were withdrawn from their bank account. BellMTS also notified them that a $2,000 Samsung phone was purchased on their Bell account. Then Ken told his bank, Steinbach Credit Union, to stop all e-transfers and other activity on the couple’s account as it was not them making these transactions. While at the bank dealing with the matter a further $5,500 was withdrawn from the Levenecs’ account.

“To me that doesn’t make any sense,” said Ken. “If you’ve already reported that it is not me, stop those types of transactions and these e-transfers are to people I don’t even know. Again, it was pretty scary that something like this could happen to your account and all of the sudden they’re doing the transactions all by phone.”

The Carillon reached out to Steinbach Credit Union to see why a customer’s account would still allow funds to be withdrawn after the bank was notified of fraud. SCU refused to discuss the issue, saying they don’t comment on a client’s account as they have “a responsibility to protect our members’ right to confidentiality and personal privacy, and as such, we do not comment publicly on an individual’s personal banking information.”

Colleen has withdrawn all her funds from Steinbach Credit Union and placed them with another bank. She also said it was her phone that was compromised.

“It seems to be a new way of robbing people. You don’t have to go into their home and take their tv, you can do it from the phone,” she said.

Even though the Levenecs changed providers to Telus in September, Colleen said she and her husband are still receiving bills with charges from BellMTS as the criminal is still using their phone number. She said it’ll take time to sort out the charges.

According to the RCMP, it seems the Levenecs were the victims of what is known as a SIM card scam. The way it works is a criminal deceives a phone carrier company into swapping a SIM card associated with the victim’s cellular phone to a new device, giving the criminal access to all of a person’s phone calls and text messages. Basically, the criminal has stolen a person’s cellular phone number. One benefit of this to the criminal is that it allows him to receive two-factor verification codes ultimately giving him access to the victim accounts or information.

There are two ways that this can happen. One way is to have a SIM card swapped to a different phone with the same service provider. The second way is through a process called “porting”, where a person’s cellular phone service is ported to a new device with an entirely different cellular service.

Ken said it should have been clear that the person on the new account was not him.

“How could you give this phone over to someone that has a different name than me. It’s bizarre. It’s absolutely insane. Obviously there was an error (that) the customer service person was to allow that purchase to happen,” said Ken.

The RCMP said they do not encounter these types of frauds often in Canada. The police note there are a few ways to protect oneself from this type of fraud: Avoid sharing cellular phone numbers or identifying details on social media; use unique passwords for each website, accounts, or devices a person may have; and avoid clicking on unsolicited emails even if they look legitimate and avoid clicking on links in those emails or providing any personal or financial information.

The Carillon reached out to BellMTS to see what they are doing to protect their customers from data breaches and were not given a response other than that the Samsung phone charge had been reversed.

Fortunately, the Levenecs have been refunded all the money that was taken out of their account.

“If they’re able to get away with this then anybody (can), $10,000 or $20,000 it could have been more. And I just thought to myself, ‘That’s just insane,’” said Ken. “Some people’s accounts could have been emptied. The more people are aware of it they wouldn’t be standing alone thinking it just happened to me.”