Fourteen years ago, Shawville’s Royal Bank of Canada encountered maybe one case of fraud every month, according to branch manager Meagan Derouin. She said these days, she is seeing an average of two cases every day.
“It’s all different types of fraud, but there’s a lot more, definitely a lot more,” she said, noting it’s a trend that is being felt nationwide. She pointed to the rise of “deep fakes” – fake videos and images generated by artificial intelligence – as the latest tool being used by fraudsters to convince people to share their personal information or sign up for scams.
It’s in this context that on Jan. 22, Derouin hosted some 30 people in a workshop about how to identify scams and protect yourself from fraud and cyberfraud, organized by Connexions Resource Centre.
Derouin said the most common types of fraud seen at the bank are password compromise, debit and credit card fraud, socially engineered fraud including phishing scams, malware, identity theft and financial abuse.
Password compromise can occur when a password or PIN number is stolen by a scammer and used to access bank accounts. Derouin explained that scammers have advanced ways of breaking into secure accounts, and can easily use computers to generate the most common passwords for a given account.
To protect yourself against this type of fraud, Derouin emphasized the importance of creating passwords that are a random combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols, and said passwords should ideally be kept in a password-locked app on a phone or tablet so that they are not accessible to anybody.
She also emphasized the importance of not sharing passwords with loved ones, because if the bank discovers a PIN or password has been shared, it will no longer be able to refund any money that was lost to a fraudster.
“There is a difference if your power of attorney is coming into the bank. They’re able to do things on your behalf. That has to be a conversation before any memory loss or things like that happen,” Derouin said.
Debit or credit card fraud can happen when a fraudster steals your physical card or gains access to its information through a variety of ways. To protect yourself from this, Derouin recommended always keeping your card in hand when paying with swipe or tap, securing access to your digital wallet, and using online banking to lock lost or stolen cards until they are recovered or replaced. She also said it is important to report even small charges that appear on a bank statement if they weren’t made by you, because sometimes fraudsters will try taking small amounts first, to test if anybody is paying attention, before stealing larger amounts from an account.
Phishing scams, what Derouin classified as social engineering fraud, occur when a scammer uses social media, phone calls and texting to lure somebody into giving up personal information that will then be used to access their accounts. She said this can look like anything from a Facebook invitation from a friend to click on a link that will somehow compromise the security of the information on your computer to a text message or email from the CRA telling you you owe the government massive amounts of money, to a text message from your bank telling you your account has been compromised and need to text back your PIN number to protect it. She said the best practice is to always check in with your financial institution in person or by phone to verify the legitimacy of messages like these.
An added danger of scam emails is that they may contain links that will put malware on your computer. This malware can be used to collect critical information scammers need to get into your account.
Identify theft can occur without your knowledge or consent, when someone uses your name, social insurance number or other personal information to get into your accounts. To protect yourself from this, Derouin recommended not carrying your SIN card in your wallet, and ensuring all documents with personal information are shredded and not simply recycled.
Finally, Derouin explained financial abuse occurs when money or property is misused by someone you trust. She said she sees this occur often with grandchildren who begin with helping out a grandparent with groceries, for example, but who slowly take liberties with the trust being bestowed in them. Derouin said bank employees are trained to recognize signs that financial abuse may be occurring, including timid or fearful body language, the withdrawal of large amounts of money at one time, or the presence of another person hovering over you at the bank.
“We’re equipped, at the bank, to help you deal with these kinds of situations.”
The big message from Derouin was to always do your due diligence to verify the credentials of a person, an email, a text message or any other seemingly strange request for personal information before sharing anything. She said she is more than happy to help anybody do this.
“I would just always double check with your local financial institution or wherever you bank, because most of the time we’re able to recognize quickly whether it’s a fraud or not.”
