Nanaimo RCMP are warning Vancouver Island residents of a scam affecting people in their community.
A Nanaimo woman recently lost $1,800 in a scam using the texting platform, WhatsApp. This particular case of fraud occurred on February 13th and police say it involved nine prepaid Mastercards.
Police say the woman told them that she has been using WhatsApp to communicate with her daughter who is travelling overseas. During this time her daughter informed her that she had been locked out of her WhatsApp account and told her mother to chat with her on Instagram from that point on.
On Monday, February 13th, the victim received a message on WhatsApp from someone she thought to be her daughter.
The scammer, pretending to be the daughter, then made the victim believe that she had recently dropped her phone in a toilet and she needed her to buy her nine prepaid Mastercards through a company called Vanilla. She was able to purchase them at various gas stations and Walmart.
Once the Mastercards had been acquired and the victim spent $1,800 on them, she sent the 10-digit codes to who she thought was her daughter via WhatsApp.
Following this, the scammer asked the victim for more money, which tipped her off to the fact that she’d been defrauded. The victim promptly called police after realizing this.
“The clerk at each location warned her that it appeared she was being scammed. The victim however, overlooked the warning signs because in her mind,” said R/Cst Gary O’Brien of the Nanaimo RCMP. “She was simply helping her daughter out of a bind.”
This is just one of many scams that Vancouver Islanders are falling victim to.
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